Feature – Page 10 – Dangerous Universe

Direct Beam Comms #153

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVNovember 4, 2018November 3, 2018

Rumor Control

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about sci-fi films in the late 1970s and early 1980s and I came up with a theory: for a time every sci-fi movie back then either wanted to be the next Star Wars or Alien. Released in 1977 Star Wars would quickly become one of the most influential movies ever, and while Alien didn’t do quite as well at the box office in 1979, it too would go onto become one of the most influential sci-fi movies in cinema history.

In 1978 there were such films as the dreadful Starcrash that was an Italian version of Star Wars and Battlestar Galacticawhich was the TV version of Star Wars that aired as a feature film in some countries. In 1979 Disney released their version of Star Wars with The Black Hole.

1980 saw the released of The Empire Strikes Back along with movies like Flash Gordon which, ironically, the source material from was influential to the creation of Star Wars while equally Star Wars was influential to the creation of the film version of Flash Gordon, as well as Battle Beyond the Stars which was Roger Corman’s low-budget version of Star Wars.

In 1981 there was Outland that was basically Alien minus the monster set on a mining colony and Galaxy of Terror that was Corman’s low-budget version of Alien.

Much like with Outland, Blade Runner from 1982 was essentially Alien minus the monster but set in a dystopian Los Angeles while The Thing also from that year was Alien only not on a futuristic spaceship but instead an Antarctic research station present day. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was more Star Wars than classic Star Trek in many regards with gigantic spaceships zapping each other while Disney’s Tron that year also owed a lot to Star Wars as well.

I think what changed things that year was the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial that was a huge box office hit in 1982. That movie broke the mold as it was a sci-fi flick set present day about a nice alien visiting nice people on the sometimes not-so-nice Earth and, other than special effects wizardry, didn’t owe a thing to either Star Wars or Alien.

After 1982 there would be a much more diverse group of sci-fi movies like Terminator, Dune and Enemy Mine to be released. While there were still movies like The Last Starfighter that were essentially versions of Star Wars and Creature that was essentially a clone of Alien, for the most part filmmakers were done with trying to make new versions of Alien and Star Wars.

For a while, at least.

The one major sci-fi movie from the late 1970s that doesn’t fit the “clone” mold was Star Trek: The Motion Picture from 1979. While that film relies on the special effects revolution created with Star Wars, in no way shape or form did Star Trek: The Motion Picture want to be Star Wars. I think that’s because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was helming this first feature film version of the TV series and seemed to be an individual with a strong sense of how he wanted Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be. While I think he was fine with utilizing the special effects wizards that came out of Star Wars, at the same time he wanted his Star Trek to be something entirely different that Star Wars. Which, for better or worse it is.

TV

True Detective season 3 commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btoZfxs0pE0&feature=youtu.be

Comics

William Gibson’s Alien 3

Dark Horse Comics is releasing an adaptation of William Gibson’s script to Alien 3 in comic form starting this week. Gibson’s version would’ve been more of a direct sequel to Aliens than the theatrical Alien 3 was and would’ve featured both Hicks and Newt as well as Ripley and is considered by many to be one of the great unmade films of all-time.

After the deadly events of the film Aliens, the spaceship Sulaco carrying the sleeping bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop is intercepted by the Union of Progressive Peoples. What the UPP forces don’t expect is another deadly passenger that is about to unleash chaos between two governmental titans intent on developing the ultimate Cold War weapon of mass destruction.

What To Watch This Week

The Girl in the Spider's Web — The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Out this Friday are two new films in theaters. First up is the fifth film to bring anti-social anti-hero Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) to the big-screen The Girl in the Spider’s Web whileOverlord features American paratroopers battling it out with Nazi zombies during World War 2 in a horror/action flick.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

From Russia with Love
Adventures of Captain Marvel

Movie Traditions

Feature, MoviesNovember 2, 2018October 28, 2018

While some people have traditions like where they eat when they drive across the country to visit grandma, I have certain pop-culture traditions I like to follow. One of those traditions is with the novel Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson. Beginning in January, each chapter of that book takes place over a different month and what I like to do is read the book one month/chapter at a time throughout the year.

But I have a lot more traditions like these around movies than books. Like everyone else I watch A Christmas Story on Christmas every year, but my movie traditions go a bit deeper than this. The movies I’ve listed below are all ones I try and watch each and every year at the time they’re set.

Thanksgiving

There’s not a lot of movies based around Thanksgiving, but the obvious one is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Obvious or not, the film was written and directed by John Hughes, who also wrote and directed just about every movie kids growing up in the 1980s love, and is superb. While I didn’t much care for this flick as a kid when it was first released in 1987, I’ve come to really like it as an adult where I can now identify with Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he tries to get from New York City to Chicago in time for his family Thanksgiving dinner along with Del Griffith (John Candy) who’s sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Planes, Trains and Automobiles has an ending that gets me every time.

Christmas

There are loads of movies set around Christmas that aren’t about Christmas I could choose from here; Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Prometheus, Go…, but the one I’m going to go with is Gremlins. Set at Christmastime in the town of Kingston Falls, Gremlins was so obviously shot on the backlot at Warner Bros in hot, sunny California rather than someplace that really sees snowflakes it’s almost comical. That’s not a dig at this fun flick that while the setting might look artificial, everything else from the special effects to the story to the outright SCARES in this PG rated movie makes it a classic in my book.

Independence Day

The easy movie to go with here would be the literal Independence Day, but I like to go with the film Zodiac instead. “What,” you say, “Zodiac isn’t a movie about Independence Day!?” And I’d agree with that, Zodiac is a movie that takes place over many years during the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. But the first scene of the movie takes place on July 4, 1969 and for whatever reason has stuck with me since.

Labor Day

There’s only one movie I can think of about Labor Day, and that movie is Stand By Me. Taking place over Labor Day weekend and ending the morning of, Stand By Me so perfectly captures what it’s like to be a boy in between elementary and middle school as well as what it’s like for every kid on those last few days of trying to stretch out the final remaining bits summer before the start of school.

Halloween

There are a million and one Halloween movies and more than a few of them that take place ON Halloween, not even considering there’s a whole franchise of Halloween movies at this point. But the movie I like to watch every year at Halloween is The Crow. Unfortunately, The Crow is mostly remembered for being the film that star Jason Lee was killed on during production. But it’s also a great movie based on a comic book that has a unique visual style and look that was heavily influential to things like The Matrix. Oh yeah, it also takes place in this hyper-real and dark Halloween that alternates between the fascinating and the stuff of nightmares. Here, musician Eric Draven (Lee) and fiancé are murdered one Halloween by thugs but arises from the grave as a practically indestructible mystical force to avenge their deaths one year later. The Crow is a superhero movie while also being an anti-superhero movie at the same time.

Direct Beam Comms #152

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVOctober 28, 2018October 28, 2018

TV

Deutschland 86 ⭐⭐⭐

The first Deutschland 83 series on Sundance ended its run way back in the summer of 2015. That series, about East German spy Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) infiltrating West Germany in 1983 was pretty good, kind’a like The Americans but from a German perspective. And now comes the next season Deutschland 86 that unfortunately, much like Mr Inbetween on FX, seems to be being burned off by Sundance since the series is airing at the very desirable slot of midnight (Eastern). What’s crazy is Deutschland 86 could easily be airing in primetime except that Sundance are instead airing episodes of Law and Order that at this point are nearly 20 years old.

Anyway…

Now set in 1986 just four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which symbolically was the end of the Cold War and the beginning of German reunification, the action has shifted from averting a conflict between East and West Germany to instead the survival of East Germany. They’re literally running out of money as the Soviet Union begins pulling back as their economy begins to implode leaving East Germany short on everything from food to medicine. They’re so desperate that East German spy Lenora Rauch (Maria Schrader) is in South Africa trying to broker an arms deal, even though the South African government are their enemy, while back at home government officials Walter Schweppenstette (Sylvester Groth) and Annett Schneider (Sonja Gerhardt) work on a deal with a West German drug manufacturer to run a trial on some shady drugs in the East in order to obtain some hard currency.

Deutschland 86 wasn’t at all what I had expected. The first season was much more the traditional spy drama, with Martin having to hide in plain sight in the West as he desperately tries to avert World War III. But this season is a bit different. Now, these spies are using their trade not to get one up on the west, but to instead try and save their country as it begins spiraling down the drainpipe of history. It’s a very interesting story/twist that I’m really interested in seeing where it all goes.

What To Watch This Week

Sunday

In their final “Mummy Sunday” before Halloween, TCM will be airing The Mummy’s Shroud and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb tonight.

Monday

TCM will be airing loads of horror movies today including The Curse of the Cat People, Children of the Dammed, Village of the Damned, Island of Lost Souls and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Tuesday

Insomniac Theater: Very early this morning TCM will run The Fly and The Frozen Dead.

Later on in the day they’ll also be airing King Kong and Things to Come.

The surprise hit of the summer The Meg is available on digital download today.

Wednesday – Halloween

Insomniac Theater: TCM will broadcast the classic Night of the Living Dead and the not-so-classic Plague of Zombies very early this morning.

The IFC horror series Stan Against Evil will debut its third season tonight.

TCM will be running loads of horror movies all day long including Dementia 13, Cat People, Carnival of Souls, Spirits of the Dead, From Beyond the Grave, Black Sabbath and Dead of Night. Halloween evening they have a marathon of movies featuring Vincent Price planned including House of Wax, Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, House on Haunted Hill, Theater of Blood and The Last Man on Earth.

Thursday

Beginning very early Thursday morning TCM will be running a load of genre movies including Mighty Joe Young, The Valley of Gwangi, 2001: A Space Odyssey, One Million Years B.C., Brainstorm and Clash of the Titans.

HDNET Movies will be airing The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension this morning.

Friday

The final season of the Netflix series House of Cards is available today.

The second season of the animated Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus debuts tonight on Cinemax. Whereas the first season followed the behind the scenes goings on of country musicians, the second will follow funk.

Bohemian Rhapsody about the band Queen premiers in theaters today.

Saturday

Insomniac Theater: Based on a Stephen King story of the same name, though the two are wildly different, TCM will run The Lawnmower Man early this morning.

The Watch List

DC Collectibles – The Joker by Rick Baker

Rumor Control

I’ve been od’ing on horror movies the last few weeks, which is something I tend to do during the month of Halloween. Beginning in September I start DVRing scary movies and save them for October. And during October the TV channels air loads of horror movies too so at any one time I might have 10 of them queued up to watch next.

This October I’ve watched things as diverse as movies like The Old Dark House, Halloween and Evil Dead to name a few to TV series like The House on Haunted Hill and old episodes of Making Monsters too.

When I watch movies I try and watch them as uncut as possible but sometimes I do have to admit that I’ll watch them with commercials or even worse “edited for content.” It’s hard to pass up a showing of Creepshow even when it’s on AMC that tends to insert commercials every few minutes and cut the good parts of the movies to ribbons.

But all that ends this week.

Sure, I’ll still watch horror movies throughout the year, but not as many as I am right now. Part of that is there’s less of them airing on TV after October when everyone goes right into Christmas mode. The good news is that I’m still working my way through The House on Haunted Hill series too which I probably won’t get through until the end of the year.

But for the most part, I’ll be back to watching maybe one or two horror movies a month until next fall.

+++

This is also the time of year I start working on my “best of” columns for the end of the year. I usually do three of them; the best posters, TV shows and what I call “best of the rest” which is a catch-all. But this year I don’t think I’m going to be doing a “best of” posters column. It’s not like there weren’t a lot of good posters out this year, but I don’t think there were a lot of great ones either, with a few exceptions. And I don’t know if those few exceptions are enough to justify an entire column — or that I can come up with enough to write about them?

What sucks is that the “best of” posters column is usually one of the more popular things I write each year. And these columns tend to drive a lot of traffic to my site years after they’ve been published as well. So I’m a bit weary of not doing one because of that.

But on the other hand, is that a good enough reason to write a column I might not be into writing? Instead I might write a ”My Movie Rundown” column about all the movies I saw in 2018. I always felt weird about writing a “best of” movies column since I really don’t see too many movies a year, but maybe a general “rundown” column would make me feel better about writing about them?

Cool Movie Poster of the Week

Direct Beam Comms #151

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVOctober 21, 2018October 28, 2018

TV

Daredevil ⭐⭐

It’s been almost exactly 19 months since the last season of Daredevil dropped on Netflix. In that time four separate superhero series have premiered there; Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher and The Defenders. And while Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) was a large part of The Defenders, I have to say that I’ve missed seeing the man without fear in his own series all those months.

Luckily, the devil of hell’s kitchen has returned for a third season after having spent the first battling Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) and the ninja clan the Hand in the second.

After the events of The Defenders, Murdock has been left a broken man having a building literally fall on him. His senses dulled and his hearing nearly ruined, Murdock spends most of the first episode of the third season recovering in a church run by a sympathetic priest and nun. He’s not quite sure where his future lies. On the one hand his friends Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) think he’s dead after that building came down on him so he could easily walk away from his life and start something new. On the other hand giving up helping the innocent and punching the bad guys in the face is a really hard life to leave.

The one weak point here is that while Murdock spends most of the episode not quite sure if he still wants to be Daredevil or not, the series is called Daredevil and not Matt Murdock so we as the audience knows he’s going to be the Daredevil again, even if he does not. So in a lot of ways this episode feels a little bit superfluous in that regard.

Also returned in this season of the show is Fisk aka Kingpin. He’s gone from the criminal ruler of much of New York to a man behind bars since the close of the first season. And, in a hilarious moment in a loud and raucous jail, screams for everyone else to “shut up” and they obey.

I’m sure the third season of Daredevil will turn out pretty interesting even if the first episode wasn’t much so, and I’m a fan of the show/character so I’m into this one until the end. I just wish that a little more had happened in the first one than it did. Let me put it this way, I think that by the end of the season I’ll look back on this first episode as one the could’ve easily been skipped with nothing lost to the story.

The Conners ⭐⭐

Perhaps the most controversial series of the 2017–2018 season was, surprisingly enough, the revival of Roseanne. Even before an episode aired there was controversy over subject matter and during the run of the show and there was more controversy as well because of some lines in a particular episode about other sitcoms.

But because Roseanne got such strong ratings, more than 25 million viewers tuned into the first episode the week it aired, the series was quickly ordered to a second season by ABC. However, during the hiatus between seasons Roseanne Barr made comments on Twitter that were considered racist, which she famously blamed on the drug Ambien, and just like that Roseanne was cancelled. But because all good stories need a twist along the way, after Barr agreed to leave the show and have nothing further to do with it, Roseanne was un-cancelled, retitled and debuted last week as the Roseanne-less The Conners.

The first episode opens with Roseanne having died off-screen from a drug overdose, some of the first season dealt with her being addicted to opioids and hiding this from the family, and the Conners coming to terms with the loss. I can’t think of any other sitcoms today that portray the working class like Roseanne did and now The Conners do. The series can go from funny to uncomfortable in a single scene and is a better show than most sitcoms because of it.

I genuinely dug the first season of Roseanne and was glad to see it return, and The Conners didn’t disappoint in a strangely moving first episode. It’s pretty much Roseanne minus Roseanne, and because the main character’s gone it means there’s more room for everybody else to have more story time than before.

I don’t think Roseanne’s going to be missed.

Camping ⭐

I don’t quite get the new HBO series Camping that debuted last Sunday. In it, a tightly wound woman Kathryn (Jennifer Garner) goes on a family camping trip to celebrate her husband’s (David Tennant) birthday. She’s got everything scheduled out to the minute and can’t deal when things don’t go exactly as planned. Honesty, Camping is more like a bad episode of Modern Family but with swearing and nudity rather than something I would’ve expected to see on HBO.

Comics

Aliens: The Essential Comics Volume 1

Although these have been collected many, many times before, Dark Horse is set to release a new version of the original three Aliens stories published together in a new volume this week in a volume that retails for $25.

Complete in this first volume is the initial Aliens trilogy–Outbreak, Nightmare Asylum, and Earth War, in which Hicks and Newt–and eventually Ripley–join forces to battle an infestation of Aliens both on Earth and in the wider galaxy.

What To Watch This Week

Sunday

TCM will be airing a load of movie featuring mummies this Sunday including The Mummy, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and Pharaoh’s Curse.

Monday

After “Mummy Sunday” TCM will have “Frankenstein Monday” which will include an airing of their new documentary The Strange Life of Dr. Frankenstein and classic films like Son of Frankenstein, The Curse of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Created Woman and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed!

The fourth season of the series Legends of Tomorrow begins tonight on The CW.

Tuesday

One of the big hits of the summer Incredibles 2 is available on digital download today.

Thursday

Insomniac Theater: At midnight tonight (Eastern) the sequel spy series to Deutschland 83, Deutschland 86 debuts on Sundance.

What was originally set to be the backbone of the Paramount Network back in March, Heathers is now being burned off in a five night “binge” after controversy overtook the series before a single episode aired.

Friday

The second season of the animated series based on the hit video game Castlevania is available today on Netflix.

Books

Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana

Looking to collect much of the wonderful art that’s gone into the Dungeons and Dragons game over the decades, and maybe cash in on a little of the nostalgia DND has been getting ever since it was a feature of the Stranger Things TV show, comes the book Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana.

From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, this official DUNGEONS & DRAGONS illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you’ll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork—from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; as well as Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Daredevil
Arrow

Beware The Blob!

Feature, MoviesOctober 19, 2018October 28, 2018

They don’t make movies like they did with the 1988 horror cult-classic The Blob anymore, and I mean that literally. This remake of the 1958 movie of the same name about a gelatinous “blob” from outer space that eats things, mostly people, was created in a time when whatever special effects were needed to make the blob crawl or eat said humans had to be created using traditional means either on-set or via miniatures back int he studio, whereas nowadays most of that stuff’s made in a computer. Now there’s nothing wrong with computer generated effects, it’s just that since most special effects these days are made in a computer, and to a certain degree all the special effects companies are using the same programs, effects in movies these days can all start to feel the same.

And The Blob doesn’t “feel” like anything else.

Arborville, California is a typical ski-town in the fall where there are high school bad boys like Brian (Kevin Dillon), jocks like Paul (Donovan Leitch Jr.) and cheerleaders like Meg (Shawnee Smith) who’s typical day is obliterated when a meteor crashes outside of town and contains within a bubble gum colored “blob” from outer space. This thing starts out small but when an old prospector gets too close it latches onto his arm and starts eating him slowly from the fingers up. And every time the blob eats it gets bigger and bigger, to the point by the end of the movie it’s the size of an office building.

Which is pretty much the plot of the 1958 The Blob that’s most well-known these days for being Steve McQueen’s first leading role and little else. But where that version of the movie has a sort of dopey “golly-gee” 1950s innocence going for it, the 1988 version is anything but that.

Here, when the blob attacks it dissolves its prey alive as it consumes it. And because you can see within the blob since it’s semi-transparent… well, I’ll let your imagination paint the rest of that picture that’s too gory to be printed here. Because the special effects used in The Blob were done practically it adds a level of disturbing realism to the whole movie that tends to stick with viewers long after they’ve seen this one.

When I first started researching just how the special effects were done for The Blob I ran into a bit of trouble since there’s not a lot of behind the scenes information for it out there. Other than a few online tidbits I had problems finding anything of real substance other than a few pics from the making of the movie. So I went ahead and picked up an issue of Cinefex magazine from 1988 that covered The Blob.

That article revealed a movie in a bit of trouble, where the original company hired to deliver the creature effect couldn’t do it, and other companies had to be bought in after the movie had wrapped to bring the creature to life. Using a variety of techniques from silk “quilts” sewn together to form the outer shell then injected with goop and animated by puppeteers to miniatures and even full-sized blob pieces, the horror that is The Blob was eventually brought to life.

Directed by Chuck Russell and co-written by him and Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Walking Dead), the 1988 The Blob also has a healthy dose of 1980s paranoia going on with it too — it would make a perfect double feature with They Live, another one from 1988. Here, government scientists and military personnel are on-hand to try and corral the monster and give off a total “let the pros do their job” vibe to the movie. Not to spoil things, but these government officials don’t all have the citizens best interests in mind and are more concerned for catching the creature alive than actually saving the good people of Arborville.

If you’re into horror movies where there are real stakes, gore and genuine frights then The Blob might just be for you. If you’re more into movies about haunted dolls being conjured by possessed demon-nuns, you might want to look elsewhere for your horror entertainment.