Category: Movies

Direct Beam Comms #12

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

The X-Files

The X-Files mini-series ended its run last week and I’d rank this first season of new shows or 10th season of the classic ones, however you define it, as being more successful than not. What seemed to not work this time around were connected episodes related to The X-Files conspiracy while what did work were all of the other “monster of the week” episodes that were somewhat interconnected but all had self-contained stories. I’m not sure why the two conspiracy episodes didn’t connect with me this time around? Perhaps what scared us so much back in the ‘90s and early ‘00s like governmental programs to create alien viruses and media control seem quaint in a time of wars and real government media control and overall uncertainty.

That being said, with the new “monster of the week” episodes The X-Files operates like the old Twilight Zone used to where ideas that would be too controversial to be tackled head on instead were approached in the guise of sci-fi and horror slightly hiding the theme in the gauss of reptile scales or mutant telekinetic kids.

Historical Series

I’ve noticed that a lot of shows that take place at some point in the past have debuted. I kind’a wonder if this is because of the old adage that in uncertain times we tend to look to the past for comfort or if it’s simply because with bigger TV budgets and computer effects that can believably turn, say, 2016 Los Angeles into 1940s New York.

Here’s a listing of current TV series that take place sometime in the past, and this does’t take into account time travel shows like Legends of Tomorrow or 12 Monkeys that take place in the past and future too:

  • 11.22.63 (HULU): Early 1960s US but mostly Texas.
  • Agent Carter (ABC): Late 1940s New York and Los Angeles.
  • American Crime Story (FX): 1994 & ’95 Los Angeles.
  • The Americans (FX): Early 1980s Washington DC & northeast US.
  • Fargo (FX): Most recently the late 1970s northern US.
  • Better Call Saul (AMC): 2002 New Mexico.
  • Fresh Off the Boat (ABC): 1995 Orlando.
  • The Goldbergs (ABC): 1980s Philadelphia.
  • Halt and Catch Fire (AMC): Early 1980s Texas.
  • The Knick (Cinemax): Early 1900s New York.
  • Manhattan (WGN): 1944 & ’45 New Mexico.
  • The Man in the High Castle (Amazon): Alternate Reality early 1960s US.
  • Salem (WGN): 1600s Massachusetts.
  • Vinyl (HBO): 1973 New York.

Deadpool

Deadpool
Deadpool

It took me a while to see this one, and really the only reason I went was because a friend and his son were going and I got an invite, but I was pleasantly surprised as to just how much I liked Deadpool. It’s not like I hadn’t heard it was good; most of the reviews I read were glowing and all of my friends who’d already saw it loved it. But I’ve never been a big fan of star Ryan Reynolds or co-star T. J. Miller so I really wasn’t too excited about spending $10 to see Deadpool.

That being said, Wade Wilson/Deadpool was the role that Reynolds was born to play. All his acting tendencies that can make him so annoying and hard to watch in other roles actually work for the Deadpool character here. It’s like all the training he got playing the annoying guy in Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and annoying Hal Jordan in Green Lantern … really the annoying guy in just about everything he’s ever played actually works well here in a movie about a superhero that’s supposed to be annoying.

I was surprised too just how strong the supporting characters in Deadpool were. Special mention goes to B or C list X-Men at best Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Colossus. While Colossus has gotten a bit of screen time in the past he’s never been as integral, or as on-screen as long, as he is here as a character realized through CGI. And Negasonic, a character who I had only been dimly aware of before, shows that there’s really no need to call on the same roster of X-Men over and over again — Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine… — when there’s literally hundreds of other interesting characters in the X-Men universe to choose from in future stories.

And Deadpool is funny in all the right/wrong ways too. It’s almost as much a comedy as it is a superhero action movie. My question with superhero movies moving forward is if all the other traditional superhero movies that come after Deadpool will look old and stodgy in comparison? B+

After the fact: A youth spend seeing movies on cable

CategoriesFeature, MoviesPosted on

Now that I think about it, I didn’t see a whole lot of movies in the theater growing up. To be sure, some years we’d see a few, but some years none at all. But it’s not like we missed seeing anything we wanted to see, we’d just have to wait a while to see it on “tape,” which in my peer group was pretty common.

Big Trouble in Little China
Big Trouble in Little China

In 1986 there were some truly great movies released like Aliens, Platoon and Stand By Me. And some alright ones that none-the-less were very popular like Top Gun and ”Crocodile” Dundee and some that would become cult-classics like Big Trouble in Little China, One Crazy Summer and Maximum Overdrive. But the only movies that I actually saw in the theater that year were Transformers the Movie and Flight of the Navigator.

That’s right — when I could’ve been seeing things like Aliens or Stand by Me in the theater, two films that I still watch every year, instead me and a friend rode our bikes to go see the big-screen version of a TV cartoon and one I went with my brother and his punk friends to see for a birthday.

Most movies I saw growing up were either rented on VHS or on cable, HBO at our house. Which means that to me a lot of movies have release dates a year after they actually came out.

Aliens
Aliens

To me, Aliens came out the summer of ’87 when myself, a cousin and my brother stayed up late, watched it on HBO and scared each other silly camping out in the living room afterward. And the same goes for Top Gun too — except there the next day we chased each other around on our bikes engaged in aerial dogfights.

With new movies when I was growing up unless the theater was in bike-riding distance, where we lived there was a little two-screen theater nearby in a strip mall, and unless that theater actually screened the movie we wanted to see, which for a little two-screen theater in a strip mall was doubtful, we would be out of luck since getting a ride to more distant cineplex was doubtful. No parent wants to drop a kid off across town, then go home for a few hours before returning back to pick them up. And if the movie was rated “R” that was another matter entirely.

We never had those problems seeing movies on cable or VHS. VHS renting was much easier for the parents. The parent takes you to the rental store where you pick out whatever you want to see. And unless the box art for the movie was too titillating or gruesome it usually wasn’t a problem. Then all the parents have to do is haul the kids home with said tape — which is much easier than a trip to the theater.

Transformers the Movie
Transformers the Movie

If the movie was on cable it wasn’t an issue for us to see whatsoever. We’d watch what we wanted in our parent’s bedroom when they in the living room and then trade places when the parents were ready for bed.

It seems odd to think about it now when movies are released on home media just a few months after the start of their theatrical run, but in the ‘80s movies would first be released in the theater then six months later would turn up for rental on VHS, then a few months after that for purchase on VHS then a year after the theatrical release would turn up on cable. THEN maybe a year after that release on network TV. Which could sometimes be a big deal since the network TV versions of movies that came out then could be multi-night affairs where additional scenes might be added to the movies that weren’t included in the theatrical or VHS versions. And this was years before “director’s cuts” of movies.

I remember my dad telling me when he grew up that some of his fondest memories were of spending Saturday afternoons “at the movies” watching a procession cartoons, serials and films. But to me some of my fondest memories were of me and my friends taking trips to the rental store or spending all day Saturday afternoon waiting for 8 o’clock for HBO’s movie premiere of the week.