Category: Movies

Direct Beam Comms #64

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Crashing – Episode 1 Grade: B

HBO seems to be the network that thrives on series focusing on the uncomfortable lately. Divorce last fall was about how uncomfortable it is to watch a marriage falling apart while Girls is about how uncomfortable it is to be a 20-something girl in New York. And while there seems to be two different audiences for those two series the one thing they have in common is that I’m not a fan of either of them. While “uncomfortable” works in sorter form things like films or limited-run TV series, I’m not sure it works in longer shows. Which is why I was suspect right from the start of the new HBO series Crashing which debuted last week.

In Crashing, Pete (Pete Holmes) desperately wants to be a comedian and has dedicated his life hitting open mics and trying to break through. Pete sees his life as having promise, but his wife Jess (Lauren Lapkus) who’s supporting jobless Pete wants more excitement and begins having an affair, and when Pete catches Jess and her new beau in the act his seemingly comfortable life comes crashing down around him. Pete’s comic career hasn’t taken off yet and when his car gets towed and he’s mugged Pete finds himself sleeping on the couch of Artie Lange since he’s got nowhere else to go.

Much like with Divorce and Girls a lot of Crashing is rooted in uncomfortable comedy. Be it Pete’s attempt at stand-up or him walking in on his wife and her lover—twice. A lot of which I found difficult to watch, especially since Pete seems like he’s a nice guy undeserving of what apparently really happened to Pete Holmes in real life. However, I found much of the episode, and the idea of Crashing overall, to be quite intriguing. I’m not sure there’s ever been a show to deal with things like trying to make it in comedy while finding out that the love of your life is cheating on you while also coming at things from a deeply religious background before.

I could see Crashing covering some very interesting ground story-wise over the course of a season but would hope that the series isn’t all about how uncomfortable it is to bomb on stage night after night.

Movies

Alien: Covenant “Prologue: Last Supper”

“It’s a big old sea of nuthin’.”

Oscars

I think the last time I was invested in the outcome of the Academy Awards was back in 1998 when director James Cameron was up for several Oscars with his movie Titanic. And that wasn’t because of Titanic which I hadn’t even seen at that point. It was because of his previous movies like Terminator and Aliens which were/are some of my favorites so I wanted to see him recognized for being an outstanding filmmaker. But other than that, I can’t really remember a time when I’ve looked forward to the awards or even watched them?

To me, awards like the Academy Awards are meaningless. All awards like those are the same. They’re based on a bunch of people getting together and voting on what thing liked the most. And a lot of times what they like the most just so happens to be whatever movie is generating the most buzz at the time of voting.

But the way people vote means a lot of great films that people still watch and love today lose out to movies that are all but forgotten a year or two later. Don’t believe me? What film won the Oscar for Best Picture during last year’s ceremony? Don’t Google it, try and remember it. I’ll be waiting for you below with the answer.

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That movie was Spotlight. Does anyone still talk about Spotlight? No. Will anyone be talking about that movie in 20 years? Who knows, but if I were a betting man I’d put my money on “no.”

And the same goes for most, if not all of the movies up for awards this year. There’s so much hoopla surrounding them, and there’s so much reporting on who’s a lock to win and who’s got an outside chance of taking home a statue. But in a year or two no one will remember or care.

Ultimately, it only matters what you think about a movie. Do you think that Deadpool was the best movie of 2016? Great, then Deadpool was the best movie of 2016 to you. Or you over there, do you think that The Nice Guys was the best of the year? Super, then that one was the best to you.

That’s why I don’t care about the Oscars. They’re such a big deal at the time that will all be meaningless in a year or two. So why waste the time?

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1920: James Doohan, Scotty of Star Trek is born
  • 1949: Gates McFadden, Beverly Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation is born
  • 1985: The TV series Robotech debuts
  • 1998: Dark City premiers in theaters
  • 2001: The TV series The Lone Gunmen premiers

Doctor Strange movie review

CategoriesFeature, Movies, ReviewPosted on

Grade: B+

I’ve been reading comics all my life but I’m not sure if I’ve ever read a Doctor Strange one. The Strange character was very popular in the 1960s and 1970s but in the 1980s and 1990s he was a C-level character at best. So I come at the latest Marvel movie Doctor Strange with a bit of a lack of knowledge on the character or how he should act. But Marvel has such a great track record with their films that regardless of how familiar I am with any of their characters I wanted to checkout Doctor Strange no matter what — but not enough to actually see it in the theater so I ended up picking it up on digital when it first became available last week.

Doctor Strange poster
Doctor Strange poster

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the title character Dr. Stephen Strange who, after an accident, loses the fine use of his hands and his entire surgical career as well. On a quest to find any solution that might fix his predicament, Strange ends up in Nepal where he stumbles upon an ancient sect of sorcerers. And after some training Strange becomes a sorcerer himself and ends up in the middle of a gigantic battle between good and evil. One one side is Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s group is trying to open a gateway to let the malevolent alien god Dormammu conquer the Earth. On the other side is the “Ancient One” (Tilda Swinton) and other sorcerers like Strange trying to stop them.

The more I read what I just wrote the more I realize how thin the story of Doctor Strange really is. I’m not saying that the movie’s bad, it’s just doesn’t have a lot of real depth. What depth there is comes from the Strange character going from self-centered neurosurgeon to selfless sorcerer as well as Kaecilius and his reasoning behind trying to open the gateway for Dormammu. But otherwise, Doctor Strange is a standard good guys vs. bad guys who are trying to destroy the planet story that is the central theme of so many sci-fi/comic book movies these days. It’s a very good version of that kind of movie, but regardless it’s the standard 21st century comic book movie plot none-the-less.

It doesn’t help matters that large parts of Doctor Strange do feel like they were taken from other films like the folding cities of Inception to a serious Harry Potter vibe as well. Though, admittedly, it is hard to tell whom was borrowing from whom since all the stuff that happened in the Doctor Strange movie could have already happened in the 50+ years of Doctor Strange comics.

All that being said I enjoyed the Doctor Strange movie a great deal. Marvel movies are all paced really well and there was never a time during the film that I felt bored or that I could pause it and come back to the movie later. Someone should do a study on how Marvel movies are put together since they’re all structured to sheer perfection.

There are a few sequences in Doctor Strange that were new and unique, from Strange doing battle as his astral projection against another astral projection, essentially they’re ghosts, while he tries to help a doctor (Rachel McAdams) save his wounded body on an operating table to Strange battling Kaecilius and his zealots in a mansion and throwing them our special doors that at the turn of a knob leaves the people outside in far off deserts or forests in other parts of the world.

Ultimately, I’d say Doctor Strange is a successful comic book movie, if a bit typical of what’s come before.