Category: TV

Direct Beam Comms #81

CategoriesComic Books, Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Toys, TVPosted on

TV

The Mist

I was a big fan of the 2007 movie The Mist written and directed by Frank Darabont from the story by Stephen King. But not too many others liked it as much as I did and The Mist didn’t do well at the box office. Even friends I showed the movie to on DVD didn’t much care for it. I think the ending to The Mist is to blame. That ending, which I won’t spoil here, is so extreme that I think it turned a lot of people off to the film.

Let’s put it this way, we live in a world where most horror movies follow the same formula. There’s a bad guy, and this bad guy is killing off characters in the movie one by one. They start with the least important character and work their way to the main character. Where, in the end, the main character gets the better of the villain and good wins the day. Only this doesn’t happen in The Mist. There’s no one main villain, there’s a few actually. There are these weird creatures that come out of the titular mist and there’s the character of Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) who’s religious fervor over what’s going on means that she’s as dangerous as the monsters out in the mist.

And because The Mist was unpredictable, didn’t follow convention and has a nasty ending where good doesn’t necessarily win the day meant that what could have been a big hit instead turned into a cult-classic.

The basic plot of the film is that after a storm hits a small Maine town, a weird mist descends that hides all sorts of dangerous creatures that are hungry and out for blood. A few survivors lead by David Drayton (Thomas Jane) hole up in a grocery store and try to wait out the events transpiring outside. But as the minutes turn to hours and the hours to days and the people inside start turning on one and other, Drayton must decide whether it’s safer in the store or outside in the mist.

What I find most ironic is that while the public didn’t turn out to see The Mist, they sure turned out a few years later for Darabont’s next project; The Walking Dead. There are so many similarities between The Mist and The Walking Dead that it’s ironic that The Mist failed so badly but The Walking Dead was, and continues to be, one of the most popular series on TV. There’s the whole apocalyptic angle with people cut off and having to fight for their lives from a weird force. There’s the brutality of the situation, with characters being killed off in some disturbing ways. There’s even some of the same cast shared between The Mist and The Walking Dead too.

What’s funniest, though, is now comes a new The Mist TV series that owes its existence more to the very successful The Walking Dead rather than the film version of The Mist.

Let me start by saying that everything I’ve seen from The Mist TV series promoting the season as a whole looks very good — like it’s going to be a lot of giant “things” in the mist horror fun. That being said — the first episode of The Mist was a big let down. For most of the episode it was more bad CW teen high school drama than Stephen King horror series. Almost all of the first episode is a drama around this Maine town where there’s a whole lot of characters, I suppose TV needs more characters than movies, but they’re all so broadly drawn caricatures of real people that none of them felt real. My guess is that the idea was to introduce these characters under normal circumstances before the mist comes to town and then when they start getting bumped off one by one it’ll have more of an emotional impact in future episodes.

But since no one felt too real I can’t imagine this will happen.

As much as I like to rag on The Walking Dead I have to say that the first season of the show did a great job of introducing characters. Right now there may be dozens of people on the show, but at the start there was only a handful really which meant we got a lot of time meeting each person. And in the first episode we’re only with the character of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) for a good part of the hour as he explores a post-zombie apocalypse wasteland. I think by having the loads of characters in The Mist and having the episode play out in normal life like a cruddy drama lessons the impact of the show. I mean, the show’s called The Mist but in the first episode we get maybe 15 minutes of the mist. The rest of the time it’s this fake family stuff.

If The Mist is comparable to any other show I’d have to say that show would be Under the Dome, another Stephen King series, and I mean that in a bad way. Like The Mist the characters of Under the Dome felt broadly drawn, suffering from the highs and lows of mania and just generally unreal that I bailed on that show after a few episodes.

Still, I have high hopes The Mist will be more The Walking Dead than Under the Dome, especially if the promos for the upcoming season are more representative of what the other episodes are really going to be like rather than just showing us the good bits like movie trailers tend to do.

Better Call Saul

This third season of Better Call Saul which wrapped up last week was better than ever. I think part of the reason the show is so good/I like it so much is that it’s headed towards some kind of conclusion, even if that conclusion is of the character of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) becoming Saul Goodman who later appears on the series Breaking Bad. As much as I might like the idea of having an open-ended story that a medium like TV provides, I have to admit that in practice its almost never a good idea. Too often series start out promising but go on a bit too long and instead of coming to a natural story conclusion drag out the story and grow stale/boring in their declining years. Series like Man Men, Game of Thrones or The Americans started off interestingly enough but went/have gone on a season or two too long and went from interesting series to watch to a slog to suffer through.

I think at least with Better Call Saul we know what the ending is with the character of Saul Goodman. So no matter what happens in the next (hopefully) few seasons, Better Call Saul is a series that’s headed to some sort of story conclusion that will lead to the events that transpired in Breaking Bad.

GLOW

I remember when GLOW, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, was a thing in the late 1980s. Then, professional wrestling, specifically the WWF, was quite the phenomena and it seemed as if everyone in my school watched wrestling and had their favorite characters from that show. I was never a big fan of wrestling but I had my favorite character. My favorite character was … well, I can’t quite remember who he was since I picked my fav by going to the toy store and buying the first WWF toy I could find and telling everyone that guy was my favorite.*

GLOW, on the other hand, was a bit different. First, it was on during the day after cartoons Saturday afternoon where I lived and rather than being almost all guy wrestlers as the WWF used to be was all female. What GLOW lacked in production values, each episode looked like it was shot on an $10 budget, they more than made up for in wild characters, over-the-top stories and a bit of titillation. For a time it seemed as if GLOW was somewhat popular but only for a little while. And just as quickly as the series emerged from the jurassic ooze of 1980s TV it was swallowed back up to disappear forever.

Well, kind’a forever. Now comes a new Neflix series called simply GLOW about the fictional formation of the league in the 1980s. Starring Alison Brie as Ruth, an actress in Hollywood who hasn’t acted in anything but is told of an audition where they’re looking for all sorts of different girls that turns into an audition for GLOW. The fictional GLOW shows the inner-workings and what was going on behind the scenes with the people playing the characters on TV each week.

One episode in and GLOW is a pretty interesting show. The first episode has some very strong characters who along with Brie include’s Ruth’s friend Debbie (Betty Gilpin) and GLOW producer Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron). It’s almost this weird, workplace show where the only people who tryout for this unproven GLOW series are, shall we say, “unique” individuals. Some, like Ruth, are looking for a way into acting, while others want to do something physical that’s a bit like a sports team since there was really nothing like that available to women in the 1980s. And some just had nothing else going on in their lives.

If you’re interested in learning more about GLOW I highly recommend the documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling that’s very insightful.

  • After some eBaying, I’m relatively sure the figure I bought was of Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.

Comics

Predator: The Original Comics Series–Concrete Jungle and Other Stories HC

Out this week is a hardcover edition of the original Predator comics series that’s become known a “Concrete Jungle” over the years. This series written by Mark Verheiden who would have a hand in the Battlestar Galactica reboot and Daredevil TV series with pencils by the amazing Chris Warner whom I tried to emulate art-wise for years is probably the best Predator comic series out there. In fact, it was so good that many elements of it, from its location to many scenes, ended up in the film Predator 2.

Celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of one of the great action movies of all time with this collection of original comics sequels to the film. For the thirtieth anniversary of Predator, Dark Horse is releasing three now-classic tales in one oversized, deluxe hardcover volume designed to sit on your bookshelf beside the Aliens 30th Anniversary edition! Collects Predator: Concrete Jungle TPB (#1#4). Predator: Cold War TP (#1#4), and Predator: Dark River TPB

House of Secrets vol. 1

If the classic long-running DC comics horror series House of Secrets is remembered at all it’s because in its pages the character of Swamp Thing originally debuted back in 1971. And while a mint copy of the comic House of Secrets #92 might fetch thousands of dollars today, the story featured in this new hardcover collected edition, and many others, can be had for a measly $50.

Experience DC’s classic horror series in the retro collection as it was originally printed. Collecting HOUSE OF SECRETS #92–97, including the first appearance of Swamp Thing, this book includes contributions from writers and artists Len Wein, Bernie Wrightson, Jim Aparo and many others and sets the groundwork for classic DC Universe horror stories for years to come.

Toys

Predator 2 Lieutenant Mike Harrigan figure

Crozz Design has created a neat Lieutenant Mike Harrigan figure from the movie Predator 2, but they’re calling him “Savage Hunter Mike” since I’m assuming they don’t have a license to produce anything related to Predator. This incredibly detailed figure retails for around $160.

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1961: Mothra premiers
  • 1972: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters
  • 1975: Rollerball premiers
  • 1979: Moonraker opens
  • 1982: Blade Runner opens
  • 1982: Megaforce opens
  • 1987: Innerspace opens in theaters
  • 1998: Armageddon premiers
  • 1999: The last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine airs
  • 2005: War of the Worlds (2005) opens in theaters

Direct Beam Comms #80

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Blood Drive

A few weeks ago I heard a term for a type of movie that was so perfect I couldn’t ignore it; “bad on purpose.” These kinds of films are exemplified by the cruddy SyFy movies of the week like the Sharknado and Python vs … that are created to be “so bad they’re good.” The badder the better. Think of the bad movies that get lampooned on episodes of MST3K and that’s what the creators of “bad on purpose” flicks are going for.

Except I don’t think anything intentionally made “bad on purpose” can ever be anything but plain bad. What the creators of these “bad on purpose” movies fail to realize is that all the bad movies that they’re trying to emulate with their film had creators who were trying to make something good. Now it’s plainly obvious that these creators failed in making something good — movies like Manos: The Hands of Fate or Kingdom of the Spiders are terrible films. But the goal wasn’t to make something bad, it was the opposite and became bad which is probably why we still remember these films.

These “bad on purpose” filmmakers are taking this weird, safe route by intentionally making something bad they can’t be criticized if the end product stinks, it’s meant to be that way.

And now comes a “bad on purpose” TV show, on SyFy no less, Blood Drive. This series tries to emulate the look and feel of a 1980s grindhouse movie/direct to VHS, it’s about a race across the country with cars that run on blood and takes place in the far-off future of 1999. The sad thing is that I was actually kind’a looking forward to Blood Drive when I heard about it last spring. The pitch here is that each week will bring a new grindhouse movie inspired episode. One week will have an episode about cannibals, another cults and another monsters. Which are all in the style of a bad 1980s movies. But if the first episode is any indication, Blood Drive is a total loss in that the creators of this series have taken the whole “bad on purpose” theme to a whole new level.

The writing’s bad, the acting’s bad, the sets are bad and the special effects are bad. Everything’s so over the top from the sex to the violence to the gore to people dropping f-bombs I had to seriously wonder why SyFy greenly this series? SyFy does have one interesting series on these days with The Expanse, but for the most part the rest of their schedule is a mess. They’re a network that’s supposed to be dedicated to sci-fi during a time when sci-fi movies and TV shows are king, yet they spend a considerable amount of their schedule airing reality series, non-sci-fi films like John Wick and hours and hours of “bad on purpose” movies too. While other series that would seemingly be more at home on SyFy than anywhere else like Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Stranger Things and Black Mirror to name a few all are shown elsewhere.

So, for SyFy to choose to show something like Blood Drive instead of something else is truly perplexing. Surely there are other series out there that are either not horrible like Blood Drive or sci-fi in nature that SyFy could have picked up? Instead, the channel keeps going down the route of lowest common denominator in their never ending quest to make fans of sci-fi turn elsewhere for their entertainment.

On sci-fi and loneliness

Moon

I was really excited to see the movie Moon when it was released in theaters back in 2009. It was one of those movies it seemed as if was getting a lot of positive buzz online and from the trailers and other marketing materials for the film everything about Moon screamed sci-fi classic that millions upon millions of people would run out and see. However, all that changed once I went into the theater and bought a ticket for Moon. The showing I went to was in a tiny theater at the cineplex that maybe seated 25 people. But if memory serves me correct it might as well have been in a much smaller theater as there were only a few other people at that showing other than myself.

Moon, much like Passengers, is a sci-fi movie where there are still plenty of people alive and kicking on the Earth, but because of the great distances in outer space people in far-off places are utterly alone and might as well be the last person. Here, it’s astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) a lone technician at a mining complex on our Moon. Bell’s at the end of his tour and is ready to go home to his wife and daughter since his only companion the last three years has been a robotic assistant GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). But after an accident out on the surface of the Moon Sam awakens to find another Sam, a duplicate of himself, on the station. I don’t want to ruin things here but Moon is the interesting movie since other than Sam #1 and Sam #2 we never get to see another person on the station at all, right to the end of the film.

And I think that’s one reason that Moon works so well — there’s so many things that happen in the film that either subvert or completely twist the sci-fi genera. Moon is a movie about a man alone and separated from everyone else, except for that pesky duplicate who shows up early in the film and is like an edgier version of the first Sam that screams sci-fi cliche but somehow works here. There’s also GERTY, whom I spent the entire movie trying to figure out when it was going to HAL-out and kill or hurt Sam, except that something quite different happens in the end.

In many ways Moon feels like a longish episode of Black Mirror, only being released a few years before that series made it to air.

If anything, I think Moon is a cross between a movie like Outland, the corporate running the lunar mining complex looks and feels very much like the corporation running the mining complex on Io in that movie — they’re willing to do anything, let anyone die and pay any price in blood that’s necessary as long as the ore keeps flowing. And a movie like Silent Running where a man, left alone in a ship on a long voyage finds a bond between himself and some robot friends. Even the style of Moon harkens back to those older films since many of the special effects used to make the futuristic technology on the Moon in Moon were done practically with models of live-action set pieces.

The one thing I think has been a bit of a letdown since the release of Moon is that I don’t think that co-writer/director of Moon Duncan Jones has lived up to his potential after his first film here. After Moon Jones also co-wrote and directed the good Source Code but also co-wrote and directed the no-good-downright-terrible Warcraft last year. I know all movies can’t be great, but hopefully Warcraft was the one aberration on Jones’ resume rather than what we can expect from him in the future.

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1954: Them! premiers in theaters
  • 1956: Tim Russ, Tuvok of Star Trek: Voyager is born
  • 1958: Bruce Campbell of The Evil Dead films and the TV series * The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.* is born
  • 1964: Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and director of The Avengers is born
  • 1976: Logan’s Run premiers in theaters
  • 1981: Superman II opens in theaters
  • 1983: Twilight Zone: The Movie opens
  • 1985: Lifeforce debuts
  • 1987: Spaceballs opens in theaters
  • 1989: Tim Burton’s Batman opens in theaters.
  • 1989: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids opens
  • 1990: RoboCop 2 premiers in theaters
  • 1991: The Rocketeer premiers in theaters
  • 1998: The X-Files movie premiers
  • 2003: Hulk premiers in theaters
  • 2005: Land of the Dead premiers in theaters
  • 2013: World War Z premiers
  • 2014: What We Do in the Shadows premiers