Browsed by
Category: Movies and TV

10 Things I Think I Think: March, 2023

10 Things I Think I Think: March, 2023

Comments 12 comments

1) THE MANDALORIAN remains the best Star Wars property going. My son loves The Bad Batch, and it seems cool. But as I wrote here, the mix of innovation and fidelity; and simply all-around awesomeness, I’ll take this over just about any Star Wars of the past few decades.

I liked Boba Fett – and it didn’t hurt that it was like a subs-series for The Mandalorian. I quit Battlestar Galactica, as it put me to sleep. But I’m a big Katee Sackhoff fan from her work on Longmire. And she is SPECTACULAR as Bo Katan. Absolutely superb. I look forward to this show every week. I think The Mandalorian is outstanding.

2) I did not look forward to ANDOR. Elementary was a police procedural with a Sherlock Holmes overlay. I liked it. Solo was a caper/heist flick (for the first half) with a Star Wars overlay. I liked it. I’m a WW II-resistance movie fan. Andor was a war resistance series, with a Star Wars overlay. And for the most part, it was DULL!

It got better when Andy Serkis became a major character, but this should have been right up my alley. But it was soooo slow, I watched most episode in two or three sittings. Lots of FB friends lavished ‘FINALLY: Star Wars for grown-ups” praise on it. To me, it was the same tone as The Literature people being snobby about Robert E. Howard and Sherlock Holmes: “Oh, you’re reading THAT ‘stuff?’ Go get some George Bernard Shaw, or Flaubert.” Whatever. I think Andor was pretty boring.

3) LETHAL WEAPON (TV SERIES) replaced the Martin Riggs character after season two. And it was canceled after less than a full season three. Apparently Clayne Crawford and the show/studio people did not get along. Whatever. They both probably had some legitimate beefs. But the way they wrapped up his character’s story line at the very end of his final episode, PISSED ME OFF! I haven’t been this mad at a show since the rape scene in Downtown Abbey. It was totally unnecessary, the way they finished up with the Riggs character. They were jack asses.

I continued on with season three. And the show works okay with Sean William Scott (though it’s not as good). But I’m still mad at what they did with Riggs. I think I’m glad the show died not long after.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: The Count Returns to His Fangy, Blood-Sucking Origins

Goth Chick News: The Count Returns to His Fangy, Blood-Sucking Origins

Comments 2 comments

Courtesy Wallpaperflair.com

If you’ve read GCN for any length of time, you’ve probably come to understand that as it pertains to vampires, I am a solid purist. I mean, I’m not at all against imagining them in modern society, as in Blade or Blood Red Sky, and I positively love alternative takes such as Let the Right One In and The Lost Boys. It’s also hard not to be a fan of What We Do in the Shadows because it’s just so darn wrong.

But what is absolutely a no-go for me are vampires who literally ignore all the rules of the genre such as sparkling, or going to high school (if only on cloudy days), etc, etc. If that sounds like the only vampires I don’t like live in Washington state, then you may well be right.

But the vampire stories I adore the most are those which cater to all of Bram Stoker’s original tropes, number one of which is that vampires are scary, blood-sucking monsters. And that’s why what I’m about to share is decidedly good news.

It appears that The Last Voyage of the Demeter, due out later this summer, could be the movie that brings my beloved legendary vampire back to his dark and sinister roots.

…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 7

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 7

Comments 9 comments

Oliver Reed in Gor (USA/South Africa, 1987)

We’ve come to the end of the ‘80s and the last of our Barbarian Boom articles, as fantasy films in the ‘90s diversified to offer a broader portfolio after the waning of Conan fever. And as you’ll see from the movies covered this week, by 1987 the barbarian flick genre had definitely passed into a period of decadence, with filmmakers straining to find ways to keep pumping life into it. Not that there aren’t some weird delights to be had in these desperate final outings, as you’ll see.

…

Read More Read More

Infected: The Last of Us, Episode Two

Infected: The Last of Us, Episode Two

Comments 3 comments

Good afternoon! Well, we’re currently well behind the actual airing of the show, so if you aren’t prepared for spoilers for episode two of this show, you should probably stop reading now and go watch the episode. It’s a good ‘un.

I should also note that other than this intro, much of this article was written shortly after the second episode aired, largely because I don’t want future episodes to influence what I write about each episode. So even though I am actually caught up, it will read like I’m not. Alright! C’est parti!

[Read about episode one here.]

…

Read More Read More

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: I Know That Actor!

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: I Know That Actor!

Comments 4 comments

If you’re a FB friend of mine (and why wouldn’t you be?), you are aware that I like to play ‘I Know that Actor’ there. I even wrote this post about it for Black Gate. It started with my love of Columbo. I would snap a screenshot of a guest star, and talk about that character, and other roles I liked them in.

Other folks would often leave a comment about that actor. I’ve ‘played the game’ with many other shows I watch/re-watch, such as Monk, Psych, White Collar, Burn Notice, The Rookie; lots of shows have familiar faces pop in.

If you know me at all, you know that Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe is my favorite mystery series. And I LOVE A&E’s too-short TV series. Which I wrote about here. That show had a repertory cast. It was a Canadian production, and I often see folks on other shows (especially Murdoch Mysteries, and Hallmark Christmas flicks). So, I often do a variation of the actor game, over on the Wolfe Pack FB page. I gathered up the posts I could reasonably find and made today’s post!

As the pic to the left shows, Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton were the co-stars. I have posted Chaykin in Powers Boothe’s terrific Philip Marlowe series. I think that he’s best-known as the ‘No Southern gentleman’ testimony on instant grits in My Cousin Vinnie.

Hutton most notably (for me) starred in the terrific USA Network show, Leverage. Due to a rape allegation made 25 years after the alleged incident (the complaint was dismissed) he was left out of the reboot, Leverage: Redemption.  Season one of the reboot was good. Season two was a disappointment, as they turned Parker into comic relief. She was as big a doofus as Nigel Bruce’s Dr. Watson. Ruined the reboot for me.

But below are spottings of quite a few other faces from the show.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Please Do Not Talk About the Contents of This Post…

Goth Chick News: Please Do Not Talk About the Contents of This Post…

Comments 11 comments

If you’re wondering why I’m giving this whole thing any additional oxygen, that makes two of us. But sometimes the universe deals up such general absurdity that I can’t let it pass.

Case in point, the latest buzz-generating horror flick, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

First, I need to point out (if it wasn’t obvious) that the said buzz isn’t good; though Hollywood has always maintained all publicity is good publicity. In general, even hardcore horror types are expressing outrage that director Fyse Frake-Waterfield has crossed the line. If you didn’t see my original write up on this gem back in November, let me get you caught up.

…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Samurai with a Twist

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Samurai with a Twist

Comments 1 comment

Samurai Spy (Japan, 1965)

By the 1960s, the tropes of chambara films, i.e., samurai adventures, had become through endless repetition standardized and over-familiar. As with the Western film in America and Europe, it was time for variations on the theme less they lose their audience, and so antiheroes raised their unfeeling heads and genre crossovers appeared, such as the samurai-meet-kaiju Daimajin movies. This week we take a look at a couple of interesting antihero adventures plus a crossover with the then-popular secret agent genre, Samurai Spy. Let’s dive in!

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Constantine 2 is Finally (Almost) a Reality

Goth Chick News: Constantine 2 is Finally (Almost) a Reality

Comments 11 comments

Cover of Hellblazer #1 (January, 1988.). Art by Dave McKean

Everyone has a couple. You know, the movie or movies that serve as your mental comfort food. In the same way that you might long for Mac and Cheese or a PB&J when the world gets on your nerves, I bet you have movies you rewatch for the same reason. When asked, some of my day-job coworkers mentioned When Harry Met Sally, the original Star Wars, and Anchorman as films they put on to lift their spirits.

As you could probably guess, my go-to movies are slightly left of center. My top three in no particular order are Jaws (1975), the first Blade (1998) movie and Constantine (2005). I haven’t looked too closely as to why these stories provide me such a soothing mental distraction, or even what they have in common. But thankfully they are all streaming because I damaged more than one DVD of each taking them with me when I used to travel long stretches for work. I mean, nothing says “sweet home Chicago” like Bruce the shark.

Whereas both Jaws and Blade had more than one sequel, such as they were, Constantine did not. Based on a DC Comics character who first appeared in his own comic Hellblazer in 1988, John Constantine would go on to star in 300 issues, earning him third place in Empire’s 50 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. So, it was not for lack of source material that we haven’t seen Keanu Reeves reprising his rendition of the cynical, chain-smoking occult detective, until now.

…

Read More Read More

When You’re Lost in the Darkness: The Last of Us, Episode One

When You’re Lost in the Darkness: The Last of Us, Episode One

Comments 2 comments

Hello! It’s me. Your wildly introverted author/gamer, who is very excited to be sharing my thoughts with you regarding HBO’s recent adaptation of The Last of Us from the perspective of someone who absolutely loved the game on which it is based. I’ll be examining each episode independently.

Unfortunately, due to my working an obscene amount, I have limited time, so I’ll only be able to post every second week or so. For that reason, though they’re written shortly after each episode airing, each review will be far behind the episodes as they’re released. That’s alright, though, as I reckon it will leave plenty of time for you to watch each episode and I won’t have to worry about spoiling it for you, because there absolutely will be spoilers.

So, with that out of the way, let’s just dive right into episode one: When You’re Lost in the Darkness.

…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fury of the Norsemen

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fury of the Norsemen

Comments 5 comments

The Viking (USA, 1928)

Considering there were only about a dozen-and-a-half movies about Vikings released in the first hundred years of filmmaking, they had a cultural impact far exceeding their number, establishing a clear and consistent archetype of the Viking warrior that holds true even today. All the tropes and visual hallmarks of that archetype were in place in the first full feature, 1928’s The Viking, and didn’t really change much over the subsequent 80 years. Interest peaked in the early ‘60s with a spate of films from both Hollywood and Italy, represented here by Mario Bava’s Knives of the Avenger, and didn’t get much of a rethink until Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking (1989), with its attempt to turn the genre on its head and simultaneously explore its mythic roots.

The last ten years have seen another upswing in interest in Vikings onscreen, starting with video game Skyrim in 2011 and the Vikings TV series in 2013, and there’s no sign of it slacking off, so it seems a timely moment for a quick survey of the genre’s beginnings. I hope you enjoy it.

…

Read More Read More