Kicking off the summer much as they’ve done the last decade is the latest Marvel movie The Avengers: End Game on April, 26. This finalé to The Avengers: Infinity War last summer is supposed to tie up a bunch of loose ends while at the
same time securing the future of the franchise for many more years to
come.
The live-action version of the animated movie Aladdin starring Will Smith as the genie hits theaters May 24. This one’s been
getting a lot of press, not all of it good, mostly focusing on how weird
Smith looks as the blue genie originally voiced by Robin Williams.
Brightburn, also on May 24, looks to be a
horror take on the Superman origin story, or what would happen if little
Clark Kent wasn’t a good kid but an evil little !@#$.
The second of the modern Godzilla movies Godzilla: King of the Monsters roars into theaters May 31 five years after the first. This time Godzilla isn’t just fighting the Mutos from Godzilla, this time he/she/it’s fighting Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah.
The oft-delayed X-Men movie Dark Phoenix is supposed to finally hit theaters June 7, though I won’t believe that until I see it. This last film in an X-Men franchise that has spanned the last 19 years sees the characters off
before the team is swallowed up into the Disney/Marvel movie behemoth,
the one foe who actually took the X-Men down!
A new take on Men in Black is Men in Black: International in theaters June 14. Replacing Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the
lead roles are Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as Agents “H” and “M”
respectively.
19 years after the previous movie comes Shaft also June 14. Sam Jackson returns as Shaft from the 2000 movie but also
the original Shaft Richard Roundtree as well as new Shaft Jessie Usher
will star in the movie too.
Nine years after the final Toy Story movie was released comes a brand new Toy Story movie with Toy Story 4 on June 21. I guess Pixar was just kiddin’ when they said Toy Story 3 was going to be the last. In a brilliant move in counter-programming, a reboot of the evil-doll movie Child’s Play is also set to be released the same day Toy Story 4 is. Let’s hope that people buying tickets to these movies don’t get
mixed up and go into the wrong theaters. Then again, let’s hope they do!”
Not quite a full Marvel Studios movie, but a Marvel movie none-the-less, is Spider-Man: Far From Home out July 5. This sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming from 2017 sees Spidey taking a school trip to Europe where he must face
off against the evil Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) while he’s far from home. Get it!?
The Lion King is getting what’s reported to
be a “live action” remake out July 19, except it’s just as animated as
the 1994 original but rather than being hand-drawn this one’s being
created by animators using computers.
July 26 sees the release of the latest Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that reportedly deals with Charles Manson murders while the even longer delayed than Dark Phoenix but still an X-Men movie The New Mutants is supposed to finally get a release August 2.
This time of year I always get into the Christmas spirit and put on some of my favorite holiday movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon as well as rewatch some very special Christmas episodes of my favorite TV shows.
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire
The very first episode of The Simpsons was in fact a Christmas special that aired on December 17, 1989. If you want to see just how good The Simpsons was when it was an animated show about people rather than a cartoon
about broadly drawn characters as which it has become you should check
out this very first one.
Sherlock — “The Abominable Bride”
While most of the modern Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock episodes were set present day, the special 2015 Christmas episode “The
Abominable Bride” was set in a more appropriate Sherlocky year of
Christmastime, 1895.
Space: Above and Beyond — “The River of Stars”
Not too many hard-edged sci-fi shows have a Christmas episode, yet “The River of Stars” from Space: Above and Beyond was the exception.
Community — “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
Right at the height of the greatness that was Community came
the fully animated Christmas episode “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
that had lots of laughs along with lots of tears and would go onto
cement this series into the annals of history.
Batman: The Animated Series — “Christmas with the Joker”
In this episode that originally aired in 1992 Batman, in fact, did not smell nor does (spoiler alert) the Joker get away.
Black Mirror — “White Christmas”
It really isn’t the holidays without watching one of the most depressing episodes of Black Mirror ever in one entitled “White Christmas.” Divided into three chapters,
each starring Jon Hamm and each more downbeat than the last, “White
Christmas” begins with murder and ends with a man trapped in hellish
loop of December 25th where the song “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every
Day” is on a constant, never-ending loop.
Happy holidays!
True Detective season 3 commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZP6t1FmVO8
Star Trek: Discovery season 2 commercial
Movies
Glass trailer
Godzilla: King of the Monsters trailer
What To Watch This Week
Bumblebee
Tuesday
Last fall’s thriller Bad Times and the El Royale is available on digital download today.
Wednesday
Mary Poppins Returns for a sequel more than 50 years after the original in theaters. Let’s put it this way, when the previous Mary Poppins movie was released The Beatles had only just arrived in the US.
Friday
The one movie I thought would never get made since the character was the butt of many a joke for years, DC’s Aquaman, hits theaters today.
The sixth film in the 11 year old Transformers franchise, this one taking place in the 1980s, Bumblebee is released to movie screens today.
The Netflix original movie Bird Box, about
people who kill themselves after seeing some paranormal thing and the
survivors having to wander the world blindfolded otherwise they’ll
suffer the same fate, is available today.
The second season of the HULU series Marvel’s Runaways is available today.
Cool Sites
Lost Media Wikia — We explore and hunt for lost media and we use teams, and our fellow community members to contribute.
I didn’t realize the TV series In Search Of… which was hosted by Leonard Nimoy had such a long life. I only discovered the show which originally ran from 1977 to 1982 in syndication when History Channel began airing old episodes of it in the 1990s alongside things like Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. But while there were just 13 episodes of the Arthur C Clark series, there were more than 140 of In Search Of….
In Search Of… covered everything in the pseudoscience arena, from UFOs, to ghosts, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis… and everything in between. Most of episodes asked a lot of questions but didn’t provide a lot of answers. Hence pseudoscience.
Ironically, where In Search Of… was an oddity on a channel in the 1990s that aired lots of documentaries and series about historical things, nowadays the simply titled History instead aires a lot of reality series like Forged in Fire and Mountain Men along with pseudoscience series of their own like Ancient Aliens. So I suppose it makes a lot of sense to reboot In Search Of… for a new generation.
Hosted by Zachary Quinto — who ironically like Nimoy also played Spock in Star Trek — this new 21st century version is essentially the old series all over again. The first episode covered UFOs and had the ubiquitous interview with three people who claim to have been abducted; one failed a polygraph test about his experiences, the other had an “implant” in a toe that turned out to be a rock while a third built a contraption so non-abductees can feel what it’s like to have that experience. There were also interviews with scientists too who were searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Spoiler alert, nothing found… yet.
There’s nothing new in this overly long and drawn-out at an hour 2018 version of *In Search Of…” that hadn’t already been done before 40 years ago in the old. Since we’re living in 2018 and not 1977 the questions I would’ve liked answered are — if we live in a world that’s increasingly being constantly recorded from security cameras outside businesses to cameras within people’s doors and if essentially everyone on the planet are carrying around cameras in their mobile phones 24/7, then why aren’t we recording evidence of UFOs and abductions on a regular basis rather than less than before? To me that would’ve made an interesting episode, not the same thing that’s been done over and over and over again for decades now.
So far the new In Search Of… is just that, a lot of looking but not a lot of finding.
Doctor Who “Shada” animated special
I don’t think people are ever going to uncover a “lost” episode of Star Trek. All of the episodes of that show that were ever shot have aired, are available in many home media formats and it’s not like there were any episodes that were aired once and never seen again. Sure, maybe they’ll find clips of episode or reels of henceforth unknown behind the scenes footage of DeForest Kelley eating a hamburger on the bridge of the Enterprise, but not a whole episode people haven’t seen in years. However, that’s not the case for classic Doctor Who series. That show has nearly 100 episodes that are considered lost that aired a few times but the original archival tapes either went missing, were destroyed or taped over.
Shada
But just because those episodes are lost today doesn’t mean that they won’t be found tomorrow. In fact just a few years ago a batch of episodes were uncovered in Africa. However, not all episodes like this can be found, case in point “Shada” which originally was set to air during the 1979–1980 season. That episode, written by Douglas Adams, yes, that Douglas Adams, was partially shot but never finished due to a work strike. So with “Shada” it’s the case of BBC having some completed footage but not enough for a whole episode. What they’ve done is to put together an episode that’s partially composed of these already filmed live-action elements as well as portions of the episode that were created via animation like “The Power of the Daleks from a few years ago to fill in these gaps.
“Shada” is interesting if a bit difficult to watch for a non-Doctor Who fan. In fact, I think even fans of the modern Doctor Who series probably wouldn’t dig “Shada” — Matt Smith obsessives probably need not apply here. “Shada” is difficult to watch partially because the classic stories were always a bit slow — there’s a part of the episode that features the Doctor and his companion taking a long, leisurely boat ride down a river — and also because the switch from live-action to animation can be quite jarring. Because TV shows aren’t filmed in order means that a character can be outside one second in a live-action scene and walk through door into an animated scene.
“Shada” is for die-hard Doctor Who fans only, and luckily since I’m a die-hard Doctor Who fan it means “Shada” is for me.
Killing Eve
Can I talk about Killing Eve for a moment? This series has won loads of critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination and was a show I was excited to see before it premiered. That was before BBC America advertised it into the ground for me. Before the first episode aired BBC America began promoting the show like most networks do for new and upcoming series. But they didn’t just promote it, they promoted it several times each commercial break. Which meant that every time I watched an episode of The X-Files or Star Trek I’d see ten commercials for Killing Eve every hour. Watch a few episodes of anything on BBC America and you can see why I quickly grew tired of Killing Eve before it ever aired. I can still hear that, “I have to kill you, I’m really sorry,” song echoing around in my head from hearing it so much on the commercials.
So I never watched an episode of Killing Eve. And again, it’s getting great reviews so it’s my loss, but I figured that once the first season ended in May BBC America would be done with it until next year. Except they weren’t/aren’t. They’re still airing promos for the show only this time telling views to “binge” Killing Eve this summer and ones congratulating Sandra Oh for her Emmy nomination.
I give up, BBC America, you win. If I publicly say that Killing Eve is the best show on the planet even though I’ve never seen an episode will you please stop airing commercials for this show?
