Category: Feature

Direct Beam Comms #157

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, FeaturePosted on

Rumor Control

It’s not quite the end of the year and I’ve already been working on material that will see the light of day in 2019. Actually, I wrote the first thing that will be published in 2019 a few weeks ago. That’s partly because I like to write an article, sit on it for a few weeks and then come back and edit it with fresh eyes and partly because whenever I’m at home and bored I tend to work on my site. And since we’ve, so far, had an early winter where I live it means I’m inside a lot, bored with nothing to do.

So far for 2019 I’ve written my annual “Best of the rest” column as well as one on the upcoming movie Glass. I’m planning on also writing columns on movies like Captain Marvel, Shazam! and Avengers 4 at some point too. And also 2019 will mark the 20th anniversary of such movies as The Matrix and Star Wars: Episode I which I’ll probably write about too since they were things I was writing about here 20 years ago so I might as well keep writing about them today. 😉

Generally, I map out all of the dates I have columns due over the course of a year and as movie release dates are announced will “pencil” in things I’m planning to write about. But over the last few years this has become more and more difficult. Before if a big-budget movie was scheduled to come out on a certain date that big-budget movie was going to come out on that date. Period. But that isn’t necessarily the case anymore. Lately, lots of movies have had their release dates pushed around. I think the next X-Men movie has had three release dates so far, and the upcoming New Mutants was pushed back nearly two years from when it was originally set to be released.

So there’s been quite a few times this year when I’ve scheduled something to write about only to have to push it down the line when release dates change.

That’s not a huge deal, what is a bigger deal is when release dates change just a few months before the movie is set to hit theaters. That happened a few times this year with movies like Alita: Battle Angel that was supposed to be out last summer before being pushed to the winter and now isn’t due out until mid-February. I think with that one I had actually started to write my summer movie preview column that featured that movie last spring when that announcement was made.

And that’s not even including the TV series I write about.

Those are much harder to plan ahead for since TV series aren’t announced as far in advance as movies. While I know there’ll be interesting series to write about in 2019 I won’t know when they’ll be out until well into next year.

While I can tell you that next September I’m looking forward to seeing and probably writing about IT: Chapter 2 on September 6, in many cases new TV series that will be airing that same time period won’t even be filming their pilot episodes until early next year, and it won’t be until next May that we learn about the new series that will be airing in 2018–2019.

With returning series I know I’ll be writing about things like Better Call Saul I just don’t know when that will return — will it be the spring like two years ago or fall like this year? Or maybe even next winter?

Comics

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

DC is set to release a new version of the seminal Frank Miller Batman story The Dark Knight Returns this week. Well, “new” as in this edition is hardcover and retails for $50. If you’re looking to pick up a copy of this story, I’d recommend purchasing the $20 softcover version instead of this $50 version, since to me $30 seems a lot to pay for a hardcover.

DC introduces DC Modern Classics, collecting groundbreaking, genre-defining works in new hardcover editions, presented in a beautifully designed slipcase.

In these tales from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1–4, it is 10 years after an aging Batman retired, and Gotham City has sunk deeper into decadence and lawlessness. Now, as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by the new Robin, Carrie Kelly, Batman takes to the streets to face the mutant gangs that have overrun his city.

What To Watch This Week

Nightflyers
Nightflyers

Sunday

The ten episode Nightflyers mini-series is set to begin airing today on Syfy, and then every single night until Thursday, December 13.

The Reading & Watch List

The Director’s Cut: A Label Often Redefined, Now by Lars von Trier

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Mystery Science Theater 3000 poster
Mystery Science Theater 3000 poster

Direct Beam Comms #156

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

The Haunting of Hill House ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am very jaded and it takes a lot for a TV show of movie to genuinely scare me. I’ve been watching scary movies since I was a little kid so things like Freddy Kruger or Jason from Friday the 13th don’t frighten me in the least. Since I’ve been watching movies like that since elementary school, to me most horror movies or TV series are more boring that frightening — and don’t get me started on the total yawnsville of most new horror. So when I heard about the latest Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House I figured it would be yet another of the long line of horror “things” I’d find dull.

And after the first episode I figured I was right.

The series starts off kind’a slow following the Crain family over two time periods, one in 1992 and the other present day. And because the show jumps around a lot between time periods at first it’s a bit hard to follow. In many ways, that first one felt like a typical modern horror series with slick visuals but a shallow story. But there’s something that happened at the end of that episode that genuinely gave me a fight, it’s something that got my heart beating a little faster and left me contemplating watching the next episode ASAP.

And later that night when I went to bed I was still thinking of the show. And even later on when I woke up at 3AM and was still thinking about The Haunting of Hill House, and also thinking, “Wouldn’t it be scary if the thing at the end of the episode reached out and grabbed my leg from under my bed,” that I knew this series was something special.

Bad things are seen at Hill House
Bad things are seen at Hill House

What starts off as a happy family in the 1990s turns into something more dark and fractured by 2018 in The Haunting of Hill House. The stereotypical nuclear family with mom, dad, two brothers and three sisters, don’t talk much anymore, and whatever communication they do have is indirect. What drove them apart is something that happened to them at Hill House, an estate the family was trying to flip back in 1992, that left the mother of the family (Carla Gugino) dead. The kids all swear that they saw ghosts before what was left of the family literally drove off with nothing more than the clothes on their backs the last night they spent at the house.

When sister Nell (Victoria Pedretti) starts seeing ghosts again present day and takes her own life, the family is forced back together to confront their past which is spilling over into the present whether they like it or not.

I think the ideas of The Haunting of Hill House are just as scary as the visuals, and the visuals are pretty darn scary. Ideas like a fractured family, siblings lost in their lives and looking for help but finding none and a father so far removed from his kids he hasn’t spoken to them in years is just as terrifying as the things the kids see in the house. Be it a creature that lives in the basement, the “bent neck lady” or the tall man that thumps along the halls at night are all things that left a chill up my spine.

One thing that The Haunting of Hill House does that most other horror movies and TV series don’t/are too afraid to do is that it actually delves into the realm of sadness. Whether it’s the sadness over the loss of Nell, which as the series progresses feels less and less like a suicide from mental illness than something much darker, or even the sadness of a once close family fractured and scattered to the winds after what happened in 1992 The Haunting of Hill House is just as sad as it is scary.

And I shouldn’t forget those ghosts.

The Haunting of Hill House present day
The Haunting of Hill House present day

They’re scary, there were a few times when I caught a glimpse of one hiding in the background that I nearly jumped out of my seat. And there are times when the characters of the show don’t see them, but the viewers do which added a point or two to my blood pressure. It’s one those things where there might be ghosts anywhere in the house/background of scenes at any time, and because of that it adds a layer of tension to scenes that generally would be tension-free.

There has been talk about how the ending of the first season of The Haunting of Hill House is a let-down, that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the show. Which I think is total bunk. It fits perfectly well and if you’re paying attention to everything that’s going on it’s really the only place things could’ve ended up.

One thing is I’m not quite sure where The Haunting of Hill House is going to go from here? It’s one of those shows everyone was talking about for a while and I can only imagine Netflix is going to want another season of it. But the first season ended here so perfectly, and there is an ending, there’s no cliffhanger that would easily lead to a second season, I kind’a hope that The Haunting of Hill House is a one-and-done show, even if it means we might never get to spend time with the Crain’s again.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ⭐⭐⭐

Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000

It’s crazy to say, but I’m almost happy that the TV series MST3K was cancelled back in 1999. It’s only because the show went away nearly 20 years ago that it could have been brought back by Netflix in 2017 with the second season having debuted there last Friday. The revived MST3K still “feels” like genuine MST3K circa 1993 but with some smart updates for the 21st century. The basic premise is the same with a guy (Jonah Ray) trapped on a satellite who, along with his robot friends is forced to watch bad movie after bad movie by an evil scientist (Felicia Day).

MST3K is basically an excuse for some really talented comedians including Ray, Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount who play the robots to riff and make fun of these movies while they run.

It’s a smart idea that I’m surprised hasn’t been copied 1,000 times since MST3K went off the air but somehow hasn’t –– maybe getting ahold of those bad movies is harder than it looks? Anyway, the simple fact that after one of the most successful Kickstart campaigns in history reignited interest in the show and Netflix went ahead and picked MST3K up and began streaming it on their platform, means that since the series first premiered 30 years ago we’re still getting new episodes of it and that’s a good thing.

Movies

Once Upon a Deadpool trailer

They Shall Not Grow Old trailer

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part trailer

Aquaman trailer

The Lion King

What To Watch This Week

Vikings
Vikings

Tuesday

The latest Predator movie The Predator is available on digital download this week.

Wednesday

The sixth (!!!) season of Vikings begins Wednesday on History.

Books

Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves
Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves

Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves

A collected work of Star Trek designer and concept artist John Eaves is due out this week.

Over the past few decades, John Eaves has had a major impact on the look of the Star Trek Universe and played a pivotal role in shaping Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Starting with his work on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Eaves has worked as a production designer, illustrator, and model maker across the franchise. He has been responsible for creating many of the props and ships, and helped develop the Federation design, from the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC–1701-E to the U.S.S. Discovery NCC–1031.

Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves represents the most extensive collection of designs and illustrations created by Eaves across the Star Trek Universe. Featuring fascinating pencil sketches and stunning concept art, this visually dynamic book gives fans a unique in-depth look into Eaves’ creative vision and the wealth of his remarkable work at the center of this spectacular franchise.

The Reading List

The Dark Side: An Oral History of The Star Wars Holiday Special

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

  • Black Panther
    Black Panther
  • The Lion King
    The Lion King

Direct Beam Comms #155

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, MoviesPosted on

The bad guys are the best part

Are superheroes boring? I only ask because it seems as if the most interesting superhero movies and TV shows being made aren’t about heroes, but anti-heroes these days.

Recently, Venom, who is the nemesis of Spider-Man, was a hit at the box office while bad-guy Thanos stole the show in Avengers: Infinity War. The biggest pain in the @ss to the X-Men, Deadpool, is the most successful movie film series FOX has going right now while Punisher, the antihero of the TV series Daredevil, was successful enough to be spun out into his own series.

Boy scouts are boring

I think part of this trend is that we’ve had ten years of superhero movies and we know what the hero’s going to do. It’s no surprise that in Infinity War Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) fought to stop Thanos in his evil quest. And the same goes for Captain America (Chris Evans) who’s the world’s oldest Boy Scout who’s biggest change from his last movie was that he grew a beard. But the bad guy of the piece Thanos (Josh Brolin) is another story entirely. He’s a blank slate of sorts and is unpredictable. And because of this his character is interesting while the heroes have grown a bit stale and complacent.

Even if he’s trying to kill half the universe.

Bullseye disguised as Daredevil

The same goes for the latest season of Daredevil on Netflix. Not to knock the regular cast, but the best part of the series this season are the two villains with the return of Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) and new baddy Bullseye (Wilson Bethel). I think it’s because we’ve “lived” with the heroes of Daredevil for three seasons and we know what they’re going to do. Matt is going to be dour and Karen is going to be intense and Foggy is going to be grouchy. But what will Kingpin and Bullseye do next? Who knows, and that’s exciting.

Look no further than the Deadpool movies for more of this. The most unpredictable character in cinema these days might be Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) who does things like chopping off limbs and murdering people while making wise-cracks to the audience. These are all things we could never see either Iron Man or Captain America doing and I think that’s why those two characters feel old and stodgy while Deadpool feels fresh and new, even with all the bloody, gruesome killing.

I think the people behind the Marvel movies sensed this and created an anti-hero team of their own, Guardians of the Galaxy. Lead by Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War while both Iron Man and Captain America were lining up to do battle with Thanos, the only reason the Guardians got involved in anything was because they were answering a distress call but weren’t planning a rescue but were planning on stealing the ship of the people who sent out the call.

Actually, Guardians of the Galaxy are more good than bad. If the Guardians aren’t anti-heroes, then they’re superhero adjacent which is still pretty interesting.

In fact, the same goes for the most recent Venom movie. In the comics the title character is a guy out to literally kill Spider-Man, not minding if he has to “off” a few regular civilians to get the job done. But in the movie version as played by Tom Hardy, he’s crusading journalist who’s trying to stop the Venom symbiote from hurting people, and eventually the two end up joining together (haha) in order to do some good.

Harley Quinn

Crazy hot

One thing I do find fascinating is that while audiences have begun turning towards movies with anti-heroes for their entertainment, I’ve never seen an outright villain be the lead of a movie, with one exception — Suicide Squad.

This DC movie that’s about jailed villains who are forced together to go on a suicidal mission is the only superhero movie I can think of where the leads are, as Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), puts it, “…the bad guys.”

While they might be “bad guys” they’re doing good as they’re forced to work with the government to go in and rescue someone from a demon-infested city.

I can only imagine that more and more anti-heroes will be introduced to the box office as the sheen begins to wear off on the outright heroes. And that’s not a bad thing, change is good.

Movies

Alita: Battle Angel trailer

What To Watch This Week

Ralph Breaks the Internet
Ralph Breaks the Internet

Monday

Based on the novel by John Le Carré, the mini-series The Little Drummer Girl is set to air over three nights starting tonight on AMC.

Tuesday

The theatrical hit of late summer Mission: Impossible – Fallout is available on digital download today.

Wednesday

Several movies are set to premiere on Wednesday this week, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. First up is a new version of the well-worn story of Robin Hood and second is an animated sequel to Wreck it Ralph with Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Friday

The latest season of Mystery Science Theater is available on Netflix today.

Saturday

Insomniac Theater — very early Saturday morning TCM is airing two of the craziest, and that’s saying a lot, movies from the 1980s with the E.T. rip-off Mac and Me from 1988 and the completely bizarre and rarely seen The Garbage Pail Kids Movie from 1987. Coincidently, Mac and Me will be the focus of one of the episodes of MST3K.

Saturday afternoon TCM is set to air the 1958 Steve McQueen classic The Blob.

The Reading List

Cool TV Posters of the Week

  • The Orville poster
    The Orville poster
  • The Passage poster
    The Passage poster

Dangerous Universe turns 20

CategoriesFeaturePosted on

I’ve been working on this for 20 years. Wait, that makes it seem like I’ve been working on that sentence for 20 years, lemme try that again.

I’ve been working on this site for 20 years. That’s better.

I can’t quite believe it myself but I originally launched the first version Dangerous Universe 20 years ago this month. Back then, I was a college kid who loved everything about movies who spent my free time scoured movie magazines and entertainment news shows for any information I could glean on then, which was never enough. Right around that time the internet was just becoming a thing and people began launching personal websites, and since I’ve always had the self-publishing bug I wanted to do the same so I spent the summer of 1998 trying to come up with an idea for a site.

My original concept for Dangerous Universe was nothing like what it would eventually become.

I thought about creating a Star Trek fan-site, then one for Aliens but those seemed limiting. I wanted to be able to write about anything sci-fi related so I came up with the idea of Dangerous Galaxy. That site would chronicle the most dangerous sci-fi creatures in the galaxy from the Predator to the Borg ending on the most dangerous creature in the galaxy which was… a virus. I went as far as to write up all the content for the site in a notebook, this was before I even had a my own computer, and started work on the site at school in my free time.

But as I worked on what would become Dangerous Universe I noticed other sites that were essentially proto-blogs that were really interesting and there were also sites covering upcoming movies like Dark Horizons and Ain’t it Cool News that I read religiously too. So I pivoted my site, retitled it as Dangerous Universe since I figured universe was bigger than a galaxy, and launched it on Geocities in November, 1998 and began writing about movies.

The very first thing I wrote for my site was a feature on, of all things, the website promoting the movie Starship Troopers and a review of the movie Ronin. This version of Dangerous Universe was simple and had one heck of a long domain name but I was off and running.

For a time every few months I’d launch a new design of the site since I was a college kid studying design in school and used to have a lot of time on my hands. As for content I would update Dangerous Universe at home and then on my lunch hour at my first office job every day.

I think I finally hit my stride in 2000 when I had a design for the site I really liked and was covering movies on a daily basis while also inserting some opinion into my writings too. I was also getting a decent amount of traffic to my site and since I finally had some money bought DangerousUniverse.com.

Since things were going well I, of course, pulled the plug and decided to pivot Dangerous Universe to a place where people could download icons I’d made from TV shows and movies. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I quickly went back to the way things were after a few months.

Things got even better when my friend Michael Summers, the publisher of the Fort Wayne Reader, loved what I was doing on my site and asked me to start writing for him. Which I’ve been doing twice a month for his paper since 2004.

Over the years many things have changed about Dangerous Universe but one thing that hasn’t changed is my love of movies and TV shows, of which I’ve spent the last 20 years chronicling to millions of visitors right here.

And here’s hoping there’ll be 20 more years of Dangerous Universe to come. Even if by then I’m sure the TV and movie landscape will be as unrecognizable today as it would have been 20 years ago when I was sitting in my bedroom writing about those same movies and TV shows.

Read more “Dangerous Universe turns 20”

Direct Beam Comms #154

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, FeaturePosted on

Rumor Control

I find it funny how surprising it was this fall to some that horror movies have been so popular lately. The Halloween remake this year wasn’t predicted to do too well at the box office by the pundits, yet so far it’s gone onto make more than $150 million in the US alone. And last year It brought in more than $700 million in ticket sales. Let’s not forget franchises like The Conjuring movies that have earned more than $1.5 billion and Paranormal Activity that brought in nearly $900 million — so it’s not like successful horror movies are something new. There’s been successful horror movies forever.

Those numbers are impressive and it seems like ever year some new horror thing comes along and tops expectations and brings loads and loads of people to the theaters, yet equally every year those films are seen as aberrations.

The biggest problem with horror right now is that it isn’t “cool” and the critics want to see and write about what they see as important movies created by important people that talk about important things. And a movie like Halloween ain’t ever gonna be one of those movies. So horror movies tend to be ghettoized much like superhero movies used to be.

I also think there’s a perception among a lot of people that those who go to horror movies, especially slasher ones like Halloween, that there’s something wrong with them. Society says we’re not supposed to like movies with blood and gore and if we do like them then there’s something wrong with us. It doesn’t help matters that horror movies, even the bad ones, makes us uncomfortable, forcing us to confront our fears about morality and our mortality.

Equally problematic is that while there are some really good horror flicks, there’s also a lot of really bad ones too. For every A Quiet Place or Get Out, bet’cha didn’t think of those movies as horror but they are, there’s loads and loads of Sharknados and sequels to Lake Placid too. And the critics seem to focus on the later. But the same holds true for every other genera of movie too, from romance to superhero to sci-fi. For every good one of those, there’s a ton of bad ones as well. Yet Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t get dinged because it was released the same year as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was, but the same doesn’t hold true for horror movies. For them, the bad ones somehow taint the good.

Then again I suppose it’s no different then when the original Halloween or The Exorcist went onto make a ton of money at the box office in the 1970s. Those movies were seen as aberrations and outside the norm. Something that couldn’t easily be repeated. But time and time again scary movies came along and found success that wasn’t expected.

It was just a few years ago that the superhero movie was seen at best as entertaining and at worst something to be openly derided. It wasn’t until recently that the mainstream critics began taking them a bit more seriously until now they’re seen as an important art form.

And hopefully, horror movies will be seen that way one day too.

What To Watch This Week

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Tuesday

So far only available on the CBS All Access streaming service, Star Trek: Discovery gets a Blu-ray/DVD release today.

Friday

The second Fantastic Beasts film and Harry Potter spin-off, this one entitled Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, hits theaters today.

What was originally set to be a series, then cut down to movie-length western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by Joel Coen Ethan Coen is available on Netflix today.

Also available on Netflix is the fourth season of the Narcos series, this one Narcos: Mexico.

Sunday

Insomniac Theater: Very early Sunday morning the classic sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and dare I say a better film, 2010 airs on TCM. 

The Reading & Watch List

Cool TV Poster of the Week

The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House