Vice Principals, the latest HBO series from Jody Hill and Danny McBride of Eastbound and Down fame, looks, feels and has the same tone as that earlier series. And I supposed if you really dug Eastbound and Down you’re going to really love Vice Principals too. But if you thought Eastbound and Down was just okay you’re probably not going to be that into Vice Principles.
Here, McBride plays Neal Gamby, a vice principal from hell, running his South Carolina high school like some Soviet provincial governor where he deals out rewards and punishments to the students with little regard to the consequences. Walton Goggins (Hateful Eight) plays another vice principal Lee Russell who doesn’t get along with the Gamby and when school principal Welles (Bill Murray) steps down to care for an ailing wife both Gamby and Russell each think they’ll be the next principal. If Gamby is a bully Russell is a weasel willing to do anything if it means advancing his career.
But when the school board decides to go with an outsider as principal, Gamby and Russell team up to take her out and claim the position for themselves.
I think where Eastbound and Down worked where Vice Principals doesn’t is that the McBride character in Eastbound and Down was a self-centered foul-mouthed idiot that was believable in a show about an ex-ball player who’s been coddled all his life and was spat out of the MLB after he lost his pitch. It doesn’t work here for a character who has daily contact with the public, and their children, and could easily lose his job or be demoted for any one of things he does or says xin the first episode.
Vice Principals does have some funny moments and I can see myself watching the series — it is summer after all and there’s not a ton of new stuff to choose from — but it’s something I’ll probably watch off my DVR when there’s no other options rather than being excited about it and watching it live.
The Man in the High Castle I recently finished Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle series and I liked it a lot. After I watched the pilot last winter the first thing I did was to subscribe to Prime so that I’d be able to see all the episodes of High Castle when they were released, and the second thing I did was to read the Philip K. Dick book of the same name just to see where everything in the show was headed.
The thing I liked most about the book is that there was really no central story. Not to spoil anything, but the book’s a glimpse a very intense few weeks of life of the characters living in this world where Japan and Germany won the Second World War. That being said, the idea that no story is story could kind’a be frustrating at times.
The Americans Season 4 TV poster
So when the High Castle Amazon series was announced I wondered how the creators of the show would handle all this since I couldn’t imagine something like a TV series could embrace the “no story is story” mantra of the book. And they didn’t, which I think is a good thing. Instead what they did was to take many of the elements of the book — mainly that in this alternate world someone is producing works of fiction where the Allies won the second world war — and to build a story with these characters around this.
It also helps that my favorite part of the book, what happens to one of the Japanese characters at the end of the novel, is still present in the TV series. B+
The X-Files I thought I’d written more about The X-Files over the years but I guess I really haven’t. Which is surprising since I originally started this blog in 1998 when that series was at its height. Then again when I started Dangerous Universe only really covered movies so that would explain things. Regardless, here’s a few pieces I’ve written on the show over the years:
So, the movie Lifeforce (1985) is just an update of the Quatermass and the Pit (1958) story, yes? (I know I’m coming to this realization 31 years after the release of Lifeforce but no one ever said I was fast.)
Toys
Out in March the Lego set for the classic TV series of Batman is pretty amazing. It features Wayne Manor, the Batcave, the Batcopter, the Batcycle and the Batmobile along with a whopping NINE figures including Batman, Bruce Wayne, Robin, Dick Grayson, Alfred, Catwoman, Joker, Penguin and Riddler. Which is impressive, but this all comes at a very impressive price of nearly $270!
Hiya Toys is set to release a series of 3.75″ tall figures based on the movie Aliens, starting with Hicks and Hudson. These figures might be small but they have a big price at almost $25 per figure! Both are due out in March.
But if price is a factor, checkout the Aliens Vs. Colonial Marines Army Builder, a set of 35 “green army men” scale figures of Colonial Marines vs. Aliens out now.
On the Horizon
I’m working on columns about having watched most movies on VHS growing up and have started gathering content for my yearly summer movie preview column out this spring.
How ironic is it that the most interesting character in the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle is a murdering American Nazi family-man dealing with an insurgency and a family medical crisis played by Rufus Sewell? And that’s not to knock anyone else on High Castle — that’s just that Sewell’s character of John Smith is the best thing in a good series!
I’ve been thinking about the TV series Babylon 5 lately and there’s a reason for that. I’ve been going through my old comic collection and pulling aside issues that have some meaning to me — the first comic book I ever remember paying my own money for, ones with amazing story and art, ones that I had to seek out… — and at the same time was pulling non-comic things out of my long boxes. Some of what I moved were a few issues of a short-lived magazine called sci-fi Invasion! by Wizard from late 1990s. Looking through those magazines what was top of mind back then was Star Wars because of the then upcoming prequels, The X-Files, Star Trek and Babylon 5.
What’s interesting is that there’s a new Star Wars movie and TV series out now, a new The X-Files series that starts in a few weeks and a new Star Trek movie next year and talk of a new Trek TV series too. But as for Babylon 5, that one’s mostly forgotten.
Well, kind’a forgotten. There are DVD sets for the series but that’s about it. Babylon 5 isn’t available in hi-def nor for purchase or streaming online and as far as I’m aware isn’t playing on syndication anywhere. Which is totally odd in a time where sci-fi is king and there’s this 110 episode series that’s just sitting out there somewhere that many fans of the genera are unaware of.
Batman vs Superman vs Wonder Woman vs Ash vs Evil Dead poster
Even when Babylon 5 was new it was second-fiddle to the Star Trek series that were also airing at the same time. Where I lived new episodes Babylon 5 aired Sunday mornings at 8AM. Babylon 5 wasn’t so much as appointment TV as it was a syndicated series local stations could use to plug holes in their schedules, of which our local station must’ve had one Sunday mornings when I was usually sleeping in.
It wasn’t until TNT bought and started reairing the series weekday afternoons, and a more reasonable hour to a college student, that I was finally able to see all the Babylon 5 episodes.
Babylon 5 was good. Like Star Trek it took a season for the series to find its legs but once it did it was enjoyable. Even if many of the themes, storylines and character types are essentially pulled straight from The Lord of the Rings novels.
Regardless, it does make me wonder why Babylon 5 just went away as it were. After TNT reaired the series once or twice and tried rebooting it through a series of TV movies, Babylon 5 in the late ‘90s essentially was gone seemingly for good from TV screens.
Maybe the series was shot on video and can’t easily be converted to hi-def, or maybe it’s something to do with the special effects or who owns the rights to the show is why it’s only ever really been available on DVD? My feeling is that someday someone’s going to see this gem sitting in their vaults and either decide to reair it to great acclaim or reboot it ala classic and modern Doctor Who.
It’s only a matter of time.
Alternate Christmas flicks
Let’s say that you’re tired of the traditional Christmas movies that pop-up on TV every year — I’m lookin’ at you A Christmas Story — and want to switch things up a bit. Here’s a group of movies that all takes place at Christmas-time, but aren’t necessarily Christmas related.
Prometheus (2012): The crew of the spaceship Prometheus arrive at a far off distant planet on December 21, 2093 where they spend the holiday season fighting aliens creatures out to destroy humanity.
Go (1999): In Go, several different stories from soap-opera actors to young 20-somethings selling ecstasy to a trip to Las Vegas all collide during the holiday season.
Batman Returns (1992): This will probably be the only Batman film in history that takes place in a snowy Gotham City during Christmas.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) & Iron Man 3 (2013): Writer/director Shane Black sure must have a thing for Christmas since two of his movies both takes place at that time.
Die Hard (1988): A movie that still holds up nearly 30 years later, Die Hard takes place over one night at a corporate Christmas party gone bad.
Comics
Silver Surfer Epic Collection: Freedom collects many of the early Silver Surfer appearances in the early ’80s, from a story from the Epic Illustrated an a John Byrne one-shot to 14 issues of the Silver Surfer comic released in the late ’80s which started my obsession with this awesome cosmic character.
Movies
I recently discovered the wonderful movie What We Do in the Shadows by Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords and Taika Waititi. This movie follows a documentary crew as they film a group of vampires based in Wellington, New Zealand. Think The Office crossed with Interview with a Vampire and that’s what What We Do in the Shadows is. Instead of following the usual vampire tropes, this film instead focuses on vampire “flatmates” who are all several hundred years old and must navigate the Wellington night scene, where they’ve got to be invited into clubs to look for their next meal, and are perplexed by modern conveniences like TV and the internet. “Yeah some of our clothes are from victims. You might bite someone and then, you think, ‘Oooh, those are some nice pants!’.”
On the Horizon
I’m thinking of writing a column on what exactly Doc Brown knew in the Back to the Future movies which would come out sometime next year but haven’t quite cracked it yet.
Low level government employee on three people murdered in a gas chamber: “As enemies of the state they have lost all burial rights and will be cremated. You will receive notice in seven to ten days.”
Vice Principals, the latest HBO series from Jody Hill and Danny McBride of Eastbound and Down fame, looks, feels and has the same tone as that earlier series. And I supposed if you really dug Eastbound and Down you’re going to really love Vice Principals too. But if you thought Eastbound and Down was just okay you’re probably not going to be that into Vice Principles.
