Commercial Break: Hulk (2003) trailer
Direct Beam Comms #158
TV
Nightflyers ⭐⭐
Syfy has been heavily promoting their new series Nightflyers for months now and I think they have quite a bit riding on the show, especially since there’s not too much real sci-fi on Syfy right now. These days genre series like horror and sci-fi are king and Nightflyers, based on the George R.R. Martin novel of the same name, is a way for Syfy to capitalize on both since it’s a horror series that takes place aboard a spaceship in the future. And if Nightflyers is a hit Syfy might have something akin to HBO’s Game of Thrones on their hands, another Martin creation, in a series that gets huge ratings as well as critical acclaim.
While I thought Nightflyers was good, I don’t think it’s going to be the next Game of Thrones.
Here’s what I could gather about the first episode of this ten episode series Syfy is running every night until Thursday since the first one is kind’a confusing. It’s the future and a deadly virus is beginning to take its toll on mankind. There is a plan to escape the disease by colonizing the galaxy, but it relies on us getting ahold of advanced alien technology, the catch being that we haven’t been able to communicate with them yet. Enter the ship the Nightflyer on a mission to go out and say “hi” to ET before it’s too late. Aboard are several scientists along with a powerful psychic who might be our one chance at communication with the extra terrestrials. Except this psychic is dangerous, he’s spent his life locked away in isolation since he can hurt people with his mind. And when things start happening around the ship like engines failing and one of the scientists almost drowning in a recovery bath, naturally all suspicions point to him.
And that’s pretty much the first episode. Like I said the first Nightflyers is good, if a bit confusing. Things aren’t quite spelled out and I spent much of the first episode trying to keep up and follow the story. Like they’re going to meet these aliens but we get nothing on the history of mankind and the aliens other than they are out there in some ship simply waiting, and also we have these huge ships like the Nightflyer but apparently that’s not good enough to send out on a colonizing mission. Though maybe this will be explained later? While I usually like keeping up with stories like this in Nightflyers it bordered on confusion.
In many ways the series feels like a cross between Babylon 5 (psychics in space!), the busted Ronald D. Moore TV pilot that aired as a movie-of-the-week Virtuality (a colonizing trip to the stars presented somewhat realistically) and Event Horizon (evil things happen on a ship in deep space). But I’m not sure if it feels that way because it was in fact those movies and TV series took from the original Nightflyers novella Martin wrote 38 years ago rather than the other way around? It doesn’t help matters that the first episode is sloooooow. So much so that I kept wondering if perhaps the series should’ve been a six episode series rather than a ten?
The first Nightflyers is interesting and watching the promo that aired after the first episode about future ones has me intrigued. I love sci-fi and horror so I should be loving Nightflyers to death, I just don’t think I’m there quite yet.
Comics
Animal Man by Grant Morrison book one 30th anniversary deluxe edition
One critically acclaimed comic series that I’ve never read is Animal Man, especially the Grant Morrison run from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. That’s why I’m planning on picking up this new 30th anniversary edition of that material out this week.
Meet Buddy Baker: husband, father, animal rights activist and superhero. In these classic stories from ANIMAL MAN #1–13 and SECRET ORIGINS #39, Buddy is called by S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a break-in related to an AIDS vaccine, only to learn what inhumane acts are going on. Then, Animal Man is invited to join the Justice League of America…but does he have what it takes?
Predator: The Essential Comics Volume 1
One comic series that I am familiar with are the nearly 30 year old Dark Horse Predator comics that are still running today. While the material in this new edition has been printed many, many times before, it’s always nice to see Dark Horse giving the Predator some love.
Before the film Predator 2, there were these comics–a four-color sequel to one of the greatest action films of all time. Written by Mark Verheiden and illustrated by comics mainstays Chris Warner and Ron Randall. Collects Predator: Concrete Jungle TPB, Predator: Cold War TPB, and Predator: Dark River TPB.
Movies
Brightburn trailer
Avengers Endgame trailer
Once Upon a Deadpool promo
Captain Marvel trailer
What To Watch This Week
Sunday
The second season of the Starz spies from alternate dimensions series Counterpart begins tonight.
Tuesday
The surprise superhero hit movie of the fall Venom is available on digital download this week.
Wednesday
A re-release of the hit of the summer Deadpool 2 entitled Once Upon a Deadpool, reconfigured from its original R-rating to PG–13 and including 20 minutes of new footage, hits theaters today.
Friday
The classic 1932 action-adventure flick The Most Dangerous Game airs on TCM today. This movie about a guy who lures people to his private island to hunt them was filmed at night on the same stages that were being used to film King Kong during the day.
Two new movies are released today, the first is the odd-looking Mortal Engines about a post-apocalyptic world where cities are mobile and eat each other, and the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse about all sorts of different version of Spider-Man being forced together after some inter dimensional shenanigans.
Saturday
Insomniac Theater: The exploitation classic Rappin’ from 1985 is set to air very early Saturday morning on TCM.
The Reading & Watch List
A 1,000-year-old road lost to time
Cool Movie Posters of the Week
Avengers: Endgame poster 
Shazam! poster
Godzilla 1985 movie poster
My 2018 movie rundown
Even though I watch a couple of movies a week, I don’t watch enough of them. Lemme explain that. The movies I tend to watch are ones I’ve already seen and fall under the same umbrella; sci-fi, horror and action-adventure. So while I might stop and watch Suicide Squad on TNT if I’m flipping around the dial, that also means that I’m not watching other movies of different genres I haven’t seen yet. Other people might go out to the theater and expand their filmic horizons every week, but at best I might venture out to checkout The Predator or stay at home and watch Star Wars for the 900th time.
Regardless, here’s every new movie I saw in 2018.
The Cloverfield Paradox ⭐⭐
In an era when surprise in pop-culture is practically impossible because of the internet and social media, the release of The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix was a pretty big surprise as the movie was first advertised on the Super Bowl last winter and premiered on the streaming service immediately afterwards.
Mute ⭐
Mute, by writer/director Duncan Jones, takes place in the same cinematic universe as his wonderful Moon film. But whereas I greatly enjoyed Moon, I thought Mute was a bit long and overly serious.
Black Panther ⭐⭐
I dug Black Panther if I didn’t see what all the hype was about. It seemed to me Black Panther was a well-constructed Marvel film that I enjoyed, but I didn’t think it was much different then what had come before. But I was in the minority as the film went onto become one of the most successful movies ever earning more than $1.5 billion at the box office.
Avengers: Infinity War ⭐⭐
I liked Avengers: Infinity War but found it hard to take seriously. I mean the movie (spoilers) features half of the universe being wiped out when evil villain Thanos get all the power in the universe, snaps his fingers and literally makes it so. But does anyone really believe that when the sequel is released next summer in theaters, that by the end of that movie all of this will be undone with order restored with the good-guys winning?
Deadpool 2 ⭐⭐⭐
The movie I had the most fun at last summer was Deadpool 2. While I didn’t think it was as good as the first one, I really dug this sequel that introduced a few of my favorite characters to the Deadpool universe, namely Cable and Domino.
Solo: A Star Wars Story ⭐⭐⭐⭐
My favorite movie of 2018 had to be Solo: A Star Wars Story. Derided before it was even released, this movie that follows a young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) as he goes from street urchin to intergalactic smuggler is a lot fo fun. Solo is the one movie this year that I’ve actually seen more than once.
Ant-Man and the Wasp ⭐
I really liked the first Ant Man movie, but I really disliked the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. There were so many plot-holes here that things started to get to MST3K territory. In fact, I got so sick of this one that towards the end I started fast forwarding just to get through it.
Annihilation ⭐
The movie I was most disappointed with this year was Annihilation. It was written and directed by Alex Garland who also wrote the brilliant 28 Days Later and both wrote and directed Ex Machina, as well as being based on a series of interesting novels by Jeff VanderMeer, I found Annihilation to be dull and confusing. So much so that I didn’t even bother fast forwarding through this one, I turned it off before making it to the end.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout ⭐⭐
Another fun movie was the sixth, and so far most successful, Mission: Impossible – Fallout. I’ll admit this one doesn’t have much going on in the story department, I saw it in the theater and four months later can’t remember the story, but the action scenes in Mission: Impossible – Fallout are worth the price of admission alone.
The Predator ⭐⭐
Here’s what I tell anyone thinking about seeing the latest movie in the Predator franchise — if you’re into sci-fi and movies that feature the Predator, you’re probably going to dig The Predator. If you’re not, then you might want to steer clear of this one.