Category: Feature

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

Predator 2 is for you!

CategoriesFeature, MoviesPosted on

I’m about to take a very controversial position here that you’re going to be the witness of. I think that the movie Predator 2 starring Danny Glover is the best sci-fi action movie of the 1990s. It’s got everything from the Predator battling it out on the sweltering streets of LA with gangs, a heavily-armed government spook force and detective Mike Harrington (Glover).

Did I say, “best sci-fi action movie of the 1990s?” Make that “best sci-fi action movie” ever!

Predator
Predator

Okay, okay, okay, you’ve got me. I don’t really think that Predator 2 is the best sci-fi action movie ever, or even the best of the 1990s — maybe it is the best sci-fi action movie released on November 21, 1990, though. But I still think it’s a great b-grade movie that’s one of those flicks where whenever it comes on I’ll watch, own it on VHS, DVD and hi-def and have seen it probably a dozen times or so.

The sequel to the uber-successful Preadtor (1987), Predator 2 takes place a few years into the then future of 1997 and transplants the action from the war-torn jungles of Central America to the equally war-torn mean-streets of L.A. Here, Jamaican and Colombian gangs battle it out with each other over the illegal drug market killing anyone who gets in their way. Cops of the L.A. police department are outmanned and outgunned in these shootouts and it’s only because of people like Harrington who’s willing to do (read the following in that movie trailer announcer guy voice) “whatever it takes to take the bad guys down that these gangs are kept in check whatsoever.

Glover as Harrington is probably the most interesting piece of casting in the movie — and Predator 2 co-stars Bill Paxton who’d already had a bit-part in the original Terminator and co-starred in Aliens in one of the most memorable roles in sci-fi movie history as Hudson. Glover as Harrington is so interesting because he’s replacing toned and buff Arnold Schwarzenegger as the lead Predator-basher. And just a few years prior to this Glover had made a name for himself playing the, “I’m too old for this !@#$” on the verge of retirement Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon. So for him to jump from that to Mr. Alien-Butt-Kicker Mike Harrington in Predator 2 is some inspired casting.

And luckily it all works. Watching the movie Glover comes off as a man of action even if he doesn’t have the toned bod of Arnold.

Because there’s so much fighting in L.A. and because the fictional summer of 1997 was extremely hot, a Predator has set up shop in the city and has begun hunting members of the gangs and taking their skulls as trophies. Which isn’t too bad, he is cleaning up the streets after all, except that this alien is also killing subway passengers and police officers too so Harrington has to take him down like a good action hero should.

The cast of Predator 2
The cast of Predator 2

Did I mention that Predator 2 also co-stars Gary Busey? Yes, that Gary Busey, in the role of a government agent who’s not trying to kill the Predator, he’s trying to catch it. And, if online reports can be believed, the role Busey plays was originally written for Schwarzenegger to return to the role of Dutch from the original Predator.

What’s that, you didn’t quite get that? Yes, Gary Busey plays a role originally written for Schwarzenegger in Predator 2.

And the end of Predator 2 has to be seen to be believed. It includes the Predator climbing and falling off buildings in downtown L.A., followed closely by Harrington, and ends up crashing into an older lady’s apartment where, when Harrington arrives soon after the alien telling the woman he’s a cop, she utters the line, “I don’t think he gives a !@#$.”

If you’re looking for b-grade movie fun then look no further than Predator 2. I can only hope that the latest The Predator movie, that’s due in theaters September 14, is as good, or as long-lasting, as Predator 2 has been the last few decades.

Predator 2 poster

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