Category: Feature

Direct Beam Comms #91

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

Rumor Control

Late early September is always a sort of doldrums for TV and movies with the 2016/2017 TV season essentially over and the next not quite having started yet. And the summer movie season has also ended which means there’s a lull in new interesting movies out before the fall season starts with more interesting fare.

On TV I’ve been watching series like People of Earth, The Guest Book, Halt and Catch Fire and The Defenders. But I’ve also been checking out things like episodes of the original Star Trek on Netflix as well.

So far this year movie-wise I’ve seen:

Passengers: I liked it but I don’t think I would have cared as much for it if I would have paid full price to see it. See Passengers if you ever wondered what I Am Legend would have been like in space.

Logan: So far I think Logan is the best movie of the year and is one of the best comic book movies of all-time. Just see Logan if you haven’t.

Life: I was disappointed in this one. This sci-fi movie about astronauts in space doing battle with an alien lifeform didn’t connect with me for whatever reason. See Life if you always wanted to see an unofficial sequel to The Thing set on board a space station.

Kong: Skull Island: Not a great movie by any standards, but not a terrible way to spend a few hours either. See Kong: Skull Island if you love movies about giant monsters stepping on/eating people.

Ghost in the Shell: See above. See this movie if you understood what was going on in the Ghost in the Shell anime.

Alien: Covenant: This sequel to Prometheus/ prequel to Alien is a good movie if it takes a bit of time to get going and has a few too many plot-holes. Still, I dug this one. See Alien: Covenant if you love the Alien movie franchise even if you have conflicted feelings about Alien Resurrection.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2: For whatever reason I wasn’t a fan of the first Guardians of the Galaxy but liked the sequel a lot. It’s a fun, poppy movie that moves at a nice pace and features characters the audience likes to be with. See Guardians of the Galaxy 2 if you like watching superheros hanging out and having fun.

TV

Mindhunter series promo

Comics

Batman: Year One — The Deluxe Edition

The Batman: Year One storyline of a Bruce Wayne on the cusp of becoming Batman might be my favorite Batman story of all-time. Written by Frank Miller, Year One has a strange positivity whereas his much more acclaimed The Dark Knight Returns is almost its opposite.

From DC:

One of the most important and critically acclaimed Batman adventures ever—written by Frank Miller (BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS) with art by David Mazzucchelli (Daredevil)—returns in a new deluxe edition hardcover. In addition to telling the entire dramatic story of Batman’s first year fighting crime from BATMAN #404–407, this collection includes introductions by Miller and editor Dennis O’Neil, reproductions of original layouts, promotional art, unseen Mazzucchelli Batman art, Richmond Lewis’s color samples, script pages and more!

Books

Bernie Wrightson: Art and Designs for the Gang of Seven Animation Studio

Artist Bernie Wrightson was one of the best all-around comic book artists/illustrators/painters/storytellers ever. One body of Wrightson’s work that so far much of hasn’t seen the light of day is his conceptual work for film and TV. Of which Bernie Wrightson: Art and Designs for the Gang of Seven Animation Studio is set to rectify publishing conceptual work from his time working at this studio.

From Hermes Press:

Wrightson’s extensive design work for the Gang of Seven Animation Studio, while known, has never been documented until now with the creation of this new in-depth monograph that utilizes the archives of the studio. Marvel at concept drawings, model sheets, and hundreds of designs for projects including Biker Mice From Mars, The Juice, and Freak Show. All of the artwork in this book has been scanned directly from the original artwork so fans can savior Wrightson’s genius up close and personal.

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1907: Fay Wray of King Kong and The Most Dangerous Game is born
  • 1966: Star Trek (The Original Series) premiers
  • 1966: The Time Tunnel debuts
  • 1973: The TV series Star Trek (The Animated Series) premiers
  • 1975: The animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes debuts
  • 1980: Battle Beyond the Stars premiers
  • 2008: The TV series Fringe premiers

IT’s better than you remember

CategoriesFeature, Movies, TVPosted on

The last few months I’ve been reading about how the new movie based on the Stephen King novel IT is finally going to do the story justice on the big screen. It’ll be the film that sets right what was done wrong in the 1990 made-for-tv movie IT. These articles talk about how bad that TV version was and how it was unwatchable in its day.

The kids of IT
The kids of IT

Either the people writing about how the 1990 IT stinks weren’t around back then or don’t have good memories, but as someone who remembers I’m here to tell you that good sci-fi and horror series were the exception rather than the rule back then and the TV version of IT was one of the good things on TV.

Back then there were a few sci-fi/horror series on like Twin Peaks, Quantum Leap and The Flash with other syndicated shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Swamp Thing as well. But non-sci-fi/horror TV series then ruled the day with shows like Murder, She Wrote, Matlock and In the Heat of the Night which were all top-rated series in the early 1990s.

But really there wasn’t too much good stuff on TV in 1990. Shows like The X-Files, Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were all still in the future in 1990 so, when the IT TV movie was announced I was beyond excited.

The adults of IT
The adults of IT

In 1990, Stephen King was the one author who’s books kids at my school actually chose to read without having to. He was, and still is, a prolific writer who had a huge body of work that seemingly all of which was slowly being turned into movies. Some were good like Stand by Me and Carrie and some of which was not so good. But since there was a lot less to choose from then, genera fans like myself would devour the good stuff right alongside the not-so-good stuff. I think that’s why I was so excited about IT. To a certain extent, it didn’t matter if IT was any good or not. Fans like myself were going to watch it no matter what. I think what mattered was the “king of horror” was going to have one of his stories turned into something that was going to be shown on TV — in prime time — and on a major network.

Back then if you weren’t going to record something like IT to VHS then you had to watch each episode when it aired. And because IT aired over two nights meant you had to come back the next night to finish the story. Which a lot of people did — IT was a success for ABC when it aired with nearly 30 million people tuning in to watch.

Why do people dislike the 1990 IT today? My guess would be that by today’s standards the movie looks pretty crude. It stars a group of actors mostly known for TV work and has some special effects that are more “man in a rubber suit” funny than terrifying. Which is all true, if you look at the movie with 2017 eyes.

Tim Curry as Pennywise
Tim Curry as Pennywise

With my 1990 eyes I saw the movie in a whole other light. There was nothing like it on TV — it felt a bit like the kids from Stand by Me who were fighting a kid-killing alien from space which was not something that ever showed up on Murder She Wrote. And it had some truly scary moments, abet the end of the miniseries when you get to see the creature in all its glory probably isn’t one of them.

But still, there’s Tim Curry as the title character in its human form that was so good in the miniseries I think he turned a generation of kids off clowns for all time. Curry in his Pennywise guise is the most effective villains in any Stephen King adapted work, and that’s saying a lot.

Now comes a 2017 IT for a new generation, this one out September 8. This new IT might be the bestest, scariest, goodest Stephen King movie ever made, but I can only imagine sometime in 2044 there’ll be a whole new generation of fans talking about how bad it was.

Direct Beam Comms #90

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

When it premiered this week back in 1987, the TV series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was on really early where I lived. If I remember correctly, this action-adventure series about a group of soldiers with power armor that gives them almost super abilities was on Sunday mornings at nine. And being that as a pre-teen there was no way in the world I was ever going to get up that early on a Sunday unless I had to, I ended up missing most of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was one of the rare late–1980s kids series that was live-action and had a line of toys the series was trying to sell. And the show had a gimmick to go along with the toys as well. If you were one of the lucky kids who had Captain Powers “Powerjet” or the evil “Phantom Striker,” during special parts of the show your toy could interact with the episode. Well, “interact” might be too strong of a word as you could use the toy to “shoot” at the screen and at certain points would be shot back and if hit your ship would “explode.”

At least that’s what was supposed to happen. I never got up early enough to watch the show, never had one of the vehicles nor knew of anyone who had the vehicles and watched the show either so whether or not that really worked is questionable.

Which is probably what doomed the series. Shows like Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future don’t really live or die by who’s watching them, they live or die by how many toys get sold when the series are on the air. And since the toys didn’t sell well — I remember seeing Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future toys on the clearance racks at toy stores well into the 1990s — the series got cancelled after a single season.

Standing in for nuclear apocalypse, in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future it’s the future where robots have revolted, destroyed and taken over the planet leaving Captain Power (Tim Dunigan) and a handful of remaining armored soldiers to try and take it back. Each week they’d go on missions to try and destroy some thing or rescue some person from the robots.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I ended up watching Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future at all. It may have been a case of me catching a few episodes on TV when they aired as a special in prime-time and maybe ended up renting a few episodes on VHS too. I know me and my brother did have a few Captain Power action figures, but that was mostly because they fit well with our G.I. Joe collection.

A few years back I purchased the entire Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future series on DVD and to be honest, the show’s all right. It’s not bad but it’s definitely something that’s made for kids in mind and with Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future using then state of the art 3D effects for some of the robots and also adding these weird visual elements to make the toys work with the TV series has dated the show badly.

I do look back on episodes of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future with a bit of fondness, but it’s much like with a lot of other children’s TV series from the 1980s that I think fondly of now but don’t have much of a desire to revisit anytime soon.

The Punisher TV series spot

Black Mirror TV spot

Comics

Punisher: Suicide Run

In conjunction with the The Punisher Netflix series set to debut sometime this year Marvel comics is releasing a bunch of collected classic Punisher stories this year too. The first edition set to be released is Punisher: Suicide Run.

From Marvel:

Frank Castle stars in an explosive epic so big it took three titles to contain it! When the Punisher undertakes his most extravagant hit of all – collapsing an entire skyscraper on a group of crime bosses – he ends up presumed dead himself! A vigilante vacuum is created on the streets, and a number of psychopathic killers lay claim to the Punisher’s crown – and iconic chest symbol! Take your pick from the skull-masked Hitman, jaded cop Lynn Michaels, postal worker Desmond Kline, media-savvy author Dean Swaybrick or British Frank-ophile Outlaw! Bullets fly as the pretenders take on criminals and each other, learning the hard way that to step into Castle’s shoes is virtual suicide… But in all the chaos, will the one true Punisher make his return? Collects Punisher (1987) #85–88, Punisher War Journal (1987) #61–64, Punisher War Zone (1992) #23–25.

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1968: Kristen Cloke, Shane Vansen of Space: Above and Beyond is born
  • 1985: The TV series The Twilight Zone premiers
  • 1987: The TV series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future premiers
  • 1993: The TV series The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. premiers
  • 1995: The TV series Nowhere Man debuts

Direct Beam Comms #89

CategoriesComic Books, Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

The Defenders

The Defenders marks the fifth Netflix Marvel series following Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Much as with the Marvel film characters to name a few like Captain America and Iron Man who teamed up with others in The Avengers movies, in The Defenders those already established Netflix characters come together in the super-powered team The Defenders.

I’d like to say that I’m a big fan of the Netflix Marvel series but I find them to be hit and miss. Sometimes, like with Daredevil, I feel that each season works out well with enough highs and lows to justify 13 episodes. Other times, like with Iron Fist, things seem to drag out in order to justify those 13 episodes and I end up bailing on the show somewhere before the end. But with The Defenders, Netflix seems to have learned their lesson with this series having a slimmed down eight episodes.

Let’s be honest here — in the comics The Defenders were always a “C” list comic title compared with teams like the X-Men or above mentioned The Avengers. Characters in The Defenders always seemed to be cast-offs that weren’t already a part of another team comic but that Marvel could put together to have one more team book in their roster. And, to a certain extent, that’s what most of the Marvel shows on Netflix are — cast-off characters that Marvel either didn’t immediately have plans for in the movies or didn’t think were popular enough to make it there or, in the case of Daredevil, were tried at the movies but failed.

So, it makes sense that with a streaming series like Netflix that has a bunch of series starring cast-off characters they should also have a team show based on a comics series about those cast-off characters coming together with The Defenders.

The first episode of The Defenders almost starts from scratch with the characters in that it assumes the audience might not know who everyone is and what they’ve all been up to these last few years and uses that episode to reintroduce them somewhat. Which I liked, especially with some characters like Daredevil since it’s been more than a year since he was featured in any new episodes. I watched Daredevil and didn’t remember where Foggy or Karen ended up at the end of that series and appreciated that we got to see where everyone was before The Defenders moved forward

If there’s anything wrong with the first episode, it’s that it’s called The Defenders, but there’s really no Defenders team in it yet. All of the characters are there yet they’re not even circling around each other yet, they’re all off in their own orbits. That being said, a big something happens at the end of the first episode that I’m sure will bring them all together in the near future.

Comics

Planet of the Apes Archive Volume 1

Out this week from BOOM! Studios is a collected edition of the Marvel magazine series Terror on the Planet of the Apes that were releasing in the 1970s. I’m relatively unfamiliar with the Marvel Apes magazines but am interested in checking out this collected edition if for kitsch value alone.

From BOOM! Studios:

Experience the legendary 1970s Marvel Comics’ Terror on the Planet of the Apes, collected for the first time ever and remastered in this prestigious hardcover. This classic series follows two friends-man and ape-on the run from the law. From Doug Moench (Batman), Mike Ploog (Ghost Rider), Tom Sutton (Doctor Strange), Herb Trimpe (Incredible Hulk), and more!

Movies

The Death of Stalin trailer

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1965: Dr. Who and the Daleks premiers
  • 1966: Fantastic Voyage debuts
  • 1970: River Phoenix of Explorers and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is born
  • 1986: Night of the Creeps premiers in theaters

My favorite movie: L.A. Confidential

CategoriesFeature, MoviesPosted on

Every once in a while I get asked, “What’s your favorite movie?” My answer has changed over the years. In high school my default answer was always The Road Warrior and then in college Aliens. And while I still love those two films whenever anyone’s asked me about my favorite movie in the last few decades my answer’s always been L.A. Confidential which was released 20 years ago this fall.

The detectives of L.A. Confidential

The ironic thing was the first time I saw L.A. Confidential I didn’t get it. The story of the movie is so complex and layered that after that first viewing I went away scratching my head not quite sure what had happened. L.A. Confidential takes place in early 1950s Los Angeles where a group of detectives lead by Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) are investigating “The Night Owl Murders” where a group of people, including an ex-detective, were killed in an all-night diner robbery gone wrong. But the story isn’t nearly that simple as the plot of L.A. Confidential twists and turns back in on itself that begins to reveal corruption upon corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department.

It was only after I watched the movie a second time that I finally began to get it that over the years L.A. Confidential became my favorite and I’ve watched it once a year since. I think just the fact that I watched the movie the first time and didn’t get it, but was intrigued enough to come back to it a second time to figure out what I’d missed shows just what power L.A. Confidential had over me.

Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) and Bud White (Russell Crowe)

What’s kept me coming back to L.A. Confidential over the years again and again is the central theme that there are these dark, moldy shadows luring just behind the bright and shiny glitz and glam of Hollywood. If all we know of that city is what we see in movies, which are by definition not reality, then we really have no idea what’s really going there. And what’s really going on there, in the movie L.A. Confidential at least, are all sorts of bad things from murder, to prostitution, drugs and much worse. But because it’s in the city’s best interest to keep these things from the public, what’s described in a voiceover in the movie as, “Life is good in Los Angeles… it’s paradise on Earth… That’s what they tell you, anyway.” Which means that a certain element of the police department is allowed to break the law themselves to keep L.A. looking gold. Which means over time they become the defacto organized criminal element in the city hiding behind their badges.

The core of L.A. Confidential is the idea that what we believe to be true and what is really true might be two different things is, and if that’s not a perfect summation for life I don’t know what is.

Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken

Enter Ed, Bud and Jack, three of the most unlikely of corruption busting cops ever. Ed’s got his sights set on political power and is willing to step on anyone and ruin anyone’s lives if it means getting him a rung higher on his career ladder. Bud’s more of a bruiser than a detective and is actually used by the bad cops to beat people into submission. And Jack’s on the take, accepting money from journalists to be given the big scoops whenever a celebrity is arrested.

But for various reasons, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out why, the three of them come together to bust up this corruption ring that everyone else in power’s too afraid to go after.

And I haven’t even mentioned Kim Basinger who played prostitute Lynn Bracken’s who’s character’s one claim to fame is that she looks like actress Veronica Lake. Basinger plays an important role in the movie, one that has a bent moral compass herself but somehow serves as the moral compass for more than a few characters in the film. In addition to the film winning for best adapted screenplay, Basinger would win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Bracken.

L.A. Confidential is so good you can practically feel the southern California heat coming off the screen, smell the cigarette smoke and squint because the dust from the street’s getting into your eyes.