Author Archives: Doc

Yellowjackets S2 E3

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“Digestif”

When Natalie had taken the remains of the recently consumed Jackie back to the airplane crash site, I swore I saw a polar bear walk out of the woods. It was one more connection to LOST for me, and I was definitely surprised. Turned out that it was not a polar bear but an all-white moose that apparently has some kind of power. I still think this can be tied to LOST.

Of course, the Island would always provide for the survivors on LOST so they never felt the need to eat each other. Last episode’s cannibalism was disturbing, as was some of the resulting actions in response. A baby shower? That was bizarre. I also love the comment they keep using to justify their actions, “This is what she would have wanted.” She would have wanted to be eaten? Hmm, feels a little exaggerated.

I really do not think coach is long for the world. He is having delusions that he chose to stay behind and not go on the plane. I think he might be the next on the menu.

Misty teaming up with Elijah Wood was fun, in order to interrogate Randy. This pairing is odd, but somehow appropriate for them both.

And there is just no way around it… Shauna is a bad ass. The way she disarmed that carjacker and then took that gun and stared down the criminal at the chop shop was amazing. Her description of peeling back the skin of a human was cold and brutal. I don’t blame that guy for folding. If I were Kevyn, I would be careful investigating Shauna over the death of Adam.

We are coming closer to the man with no eyes as Taissa’s sleepwalking is in overdrive. We are returning to the mysterious symbol and I expect that this will be more important over the next several episodes. It is clearly tied to the overall mythology of this series.

The X-Files S7 E6

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“The Goldberg Variation”

“Luck isn’t a superpower…” said Deadpool to Domino in Deadpool 2. Well, we saw in that flick that it absolutely was. Longshot would also disagree with that assumption.

It seems that Fox Mulder would be in that camp too as Mulder and Scully come across a man who was thrown out of a window of a 300+ story building, falling to his apparent doom, only to walk away practically unscathed (he did have a bruise on his elbow).

“The Goldberg Variation” introduced us to the character of Henry Weems, who appeared to have the most amazing luck in the world, while people around him had to suffer to keep the balance. Cause-and-effect, as Mulder said.

This is a “monster-of-the week” episode where a sad sack individual has something weird or paranormal about them and have to spend time with Mulder and Scully. We see the same idea in Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose from season three, only that turned out more tragic than this one did.

Henry Weems got himself in trouble with the mob by getting involved in a poker game and winning big. The whole gangster part of the episode was a bit far, but I did like the overall end for the plot. It was nice having Henry connected to the boy in the building who needed a transplant. I thought from the beginning that Henry would wind up being the person who would be compatible as an organ donor and that he would die at the end to save the kid.

However, making it one of the gangsters was a nice twist, subverting the expectation of the trope. It also worked nicely with the theme of the episode.

Emilia Pérez

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I had heard this was an Oscar favorite. With it now on Netflix, I was excited to give it a chance. I was not expecting what I saw.

First, this was mostly in Spanish. I guess I should have guessed that from the title, but I did not.

Second, it was a musical. Simply did not see that coming.

According to IMDB, “Mexico, today. Overqualified and exploited, lawyer Rita is wasting her talents working for a large firm far better at whitewashing criminal garbage than serving justice. But an unexpected way out appears, the sort of offers you can’t refuse : to help feared cartel boss Juan “Little Hands” Del Monte – aka Manitas – retire from his business and disappear forever. Manitas has a plan he’s been fine-tuning in secret for years : to become, at last, the woman he’s always dreamed of becoming.”

The performers were spectacular in this movie. Zoe Saldana was Rita, the lawyer who was brought in as a way to help Manitas, played by Karla Sofía Gascón. Selena Gomez played Manitas’ wife, Jessi. All three of these performers were sensational. And they all did a tremendous job with the music/songs.

The movie was 2 and a 1/2 hours long, but it absolutely did not feel like it. The film flew by. In fact, when it came to its dramatic conclusion, I was looking at the clock wondering how this could be over already. That means this long film was paced brilliantly or else you are going to feel that passage of time.

French director Jacques Audiard creates a wonderful film, bringing out some of the best performances of the year while handling a topic that can be divisive with a deft touch. The story is not the controversy. The story is the emotions and feelings that it elicits. Emilia Pérez is top notch work that caught me off guard.

4.4 stars

Silo S2 E1

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“The Engineer”

Apple TV + series Silo returned for its second season. The first season was an unexpected treat when it first came out on Apple TV + so I was excited to see what a second season had in store for us.

Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) who was sent out of the silo in the first season finale, set up by those in power to get rid of her, went walking across the outside world. She discovered that there were more silos than the one that she came from. As she went to the nearest one, she had to walk through a field littered with skeletons and rotting corpses, belonging to a group of people we saw at the episode’s beginning, who were forcing their way out of their silo in a revolution. A revolution that did not go well. Looks like the air is toxic after all.

As Juliette entered the next silo, she discovered that it was abandoned and run down. She went into the silo, exploring the structure as we got flashbacks of Juliette as a child, learning to work the recycle center.

The episode had a ton of tension and nervous energy as Juliette made her way through the darkness and decay of this silo, picking up on signs as she went. Part of the reason these scenes were as unnerving as they were was that most of the episode was silent. Except for the flashbacks, of course, most of Juliette’s time in the silo contained little to no dialogue.

That is, of course, until she heard that music playing and went to find a big vault door, which she tried to open. Failing, she was ready to leave when she heard a man speak to her, telling her that he understood why she tried to open the door, but if she tried it again, he would kill her.

For me, I would say, sure thing… no problem… enjoy your life in there. I get a feeling that Juliette is not going to just let this guy live his life behind steel doors. Or at least her curiosity will get the better of her. Who is this guy and why did he respond to her in such a way?

We did not see any of the characters from the original silo we had been introduced to in season one, but there was plenty of story taking place here to satisfy. A solid season premiere from a solid sci-fi show that more people should know about.

Cobra Kai S6 Part 2 E9, E10

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“Blood In Blood Out”

“Eunjangdo”

So I watched episodes 6-8 earlier this morning and I was truly underwhelmed. I would go as far as say that I disliked E6 while not being much of a fan of E8, with 7 saving the threesome a bit. I was disappointed and I even went as far as to wonder if they should have ended the series after season five with that tremendous finale.

Well, I’ll shut up now.

Episodes 9 and 10 of Cobra Kai Season 6 just said ‘hold my beer.’

Holy crap. What an amazing two episodes in a row. Everything that was weak about the first three I saw this morning was totally crushed in these two episodes. I can’t believe I have to wait for the next episode, whenever the part three of the season is released.

The show amped up the karate fights in these two episodes and ended the stupid conflicts that I complained about in the post this morning. The Miyagi-Do crew finally just put their cards on the table and got the stupid arguments and hurt feelings aside after their team got kicked in the first match of the tag team competition. The tag team battle was creative and awesome.

With the tag team competition done, and Cobra Kai out… you knew something was going to happen to bring them back in. Performance enhancing drugs for one of the non-important teams brought Cobra Kai back into the mixture with the Iron Dragons and Miyagi-Do.

Then, that twist led to something the show has not had in a long time, an epic all-out karate war with everybody fighting each other. It was something that Cobra Kai the show had been well known for, but hadn’t used lately. Certainly not on this scale, with the whole thing broadcast to the world.

And you could tell that someone was getting that knife that Kreese was brandishing all over the place. The show wouldn’t have kept showing it if it was not going to be used. I was afraid that Daniel was going to get that blade as it was being set up, but I never thought that Kwon would taste the dagger. I was sure it was going to be the giant Iron Dragon guy getting killed. But no, Kwon was stabbed int he chest and fell upon his own weapon, Kreese’s dagger which he had picked up from the floor.

Of course, Kreese had every intention of using that dagger to kill Terry Silver, but when he realized that he had dropped it, Kreese decided that they had to have an old man fight, hand to hand.

I may have actually grown to like Chozen and Kim Da-Eun as a pair. Them fighting side by side was cool, even if the show did make Da-Eun flip as a character really quickly. Reminded me of Hawk’s face turn a few seasons ago. Kind of our of nowhere.

Oh, and by the way, Daniel’s dream with Mr. Miyagi making the cameo was out of this world. Make you wonder about AI.

Unbelievable two episodes, especially after the first three of this second part of the season were so iffy. I am completely back on board with the show and can’t wait for the final five episodes.

A Real Pain

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A Real Pain is a perfect example of an independent movie.

For me, an independent movie does not have a plot, or at least one that drives most of the story. It is a film where we take some characters and drop them into situations and let them see what happens. You could define it as character based films. I don’t want to imply that I do not like that style of movie, but it is distinct.

In A Real Pain, two cousins take a trip to Poland after their beloved grandma passed away to go on a Holocaust tour and visit her childhood home.

The movie was written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who starred as David Kaplan. Kieran Culkin played his cousin Benji Kaplan. They both brought Oscar-worthy performances in these roles. Their performances were very important since the characters were so important to the story.

The tour of Poland and a nearby concentration camp was very powerful and the actors did a great job responding to it.

The film was only 90 minutes long, but it did feel longer than that. That is probably because of the dense material that the film featured. However, there were some really funny moments too, which you do not find too often with Holocaust films. A Real Pain is an ambitious film with great performances that had some challenging moments to watch it.

4 stars

Red One

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons star in the new Christmas themed film, Red One, opening this weekend to a large budget.

Santa (JK Simmons) is preparing for his yearly trek across the globe when he gets kidnapped. Cal (Dwayne Johnson), head of St. Nick’s security, has to reluctantly team-up with 4th level naughty-lister Jack (Chris Evans), the man who unwittily provided specifics for the kidnapping to be successful, to save Christmas.

Johnson, Evans and Simmons are all very likable and entertaining in this movie. Johnson is playing the same version of The Rock that he always plays, but he is enjoyable at it. Evans’ character is another version that we have seen before.

The story had some fun moments, but truthfully there was not much that we have not seen before. I did like the Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) section of the film, but we saw a good chunk of this in trailers. In fact, one of my favorite lines of the trailer was not in the film. Still, I did like the section.

Some of the special effects looked great, but a lot of the CGI was not great. Again, most of the Krampus parts of the movie were good, mainly because they seemed to be mostly practical effects.

I had heard a lot of negative reviews about this movie, but I did not hate it. It was okay. It may not be a great movie, but it is about what you would expect when you watch it. It has a place as a Christmas movie watch that can be fun for the family. It is never going to be considered a classic, but it has likable actors and some fun action.

3.1 stars

Cobra Kai S6 Part 2 E6, E7, E8

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“Benvinguts a Barcelona”

“Dog in the Fight”

“Snakes on a Plane”

I watched the first three episodes of the second part of season six of Cobra Kai that came out on Netflix this weekend. The show had split into three sections for the final season. This middle part deals with the Sekai Taikai tournament in Barcelona, Spain.

Among the first three episodes, I thought there was one good one, and the other two were disappointing.

I thought episode seven was pretty good, as Daniel gets kidnapped by Kreese and put in a dog cage. The questions surrounding Miyagi’s past, which was a distraction in the first half of the season, was actually the only thing here that was interesting at all.

The rest of these episodes have so many immature, dumb moments. The first one started out with fart jokes. It went downhill quickly. The childish arguments between characters were meant to be conflicts, but they instead just seemed annoying. The conflicts were either easily resolvable, or not even worth the time.

Chozen arriving at the Sekai Taikai drunk was embarrassing. The whole issue between Hawk and Demetri is unrealistic. The apparent relationship between Chozen and Kim Da-Eun came out of nowhere as she took a totally flipped personality. The issue between Robbie and Miguel felt repetitive. Same with Sam and Tory. Devin’s whole arc is her guilt over giving Kenny a laxative and she drops that news to him over the phone.

There are a bunch of new karate fighters around with zero personality and crammed in stories, including one giant fighter whose sensei uses physical violence to train him.

They explained away Kreese’s availability here as the brushed aside the prison escape. And I guess Terry Silver is back, also somehow out of jail and backing one of the other dojos in the Sekai Taikai.

These have really taken a step back from previous episodes and I hope that it is just a matter of having to many episodes in a season (they have 15 overall, more than they usually have) and that this is not the way the remainder of the season would go, because, right now, I wish this show would have ended after the outstanding finale of season 5.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #124

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November 15, 2024

It is time once again for the EYG Comic Cavalcade! It was a good week of books with some interesting new books.

On the eBay front, Tick #13 (aka Tick: The Pseudo Edition) came in the mail this week. It is a beautiful book that is in awesome condition. I also picked up the whole series (except one issue) of Marvel’s The Human Fly. That was a huge guilty pleasure when I was younger.

Books this week:

G.I. Joe #1. Written by Joshua Williamson and art and cover art by Tom Reilly. It has finally arrived. After several G.I. Joe books over the last six months to a year, the team book is finally released. It was a intriguing group of characters in the book, including the Baroness on the Joes. There is a cool wrap around cover. I enjoyed this one quite a bit even though I did not love all of the other Joes books. This one has a great start.

The Spectacular Spider-Men #9. “Gone Girl.” Written by Greg Weisman and art by Andres Genolet & Emilio Laiso. Cover art by Emilio Laiso & Edgar Delgado and variant cover C art by Josemaria Casanovas (Silver Medalist). Story is still focused on the people at the coffee shop and we get some FF action.

Captain America #15. “And a Town Shall Rise.” Written by J. Michael Straczynski and art by Jesus Saiz. Taurin Clarke did the cover art. I have enjoyed this short arc featuring Cap, Spidey and Thor. The strength of this arc is the three of them and their interactions.

NYX #5. Written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly and penciled by Francesco Mortarino. Sara Pichelli & Federico Blee did the cover art. Ms. Marvel, Wolverine and other members of NYX face off with the public. And Sophie Cuckoo picks a side.

Uncanny X-Men #5. “Thunder in our Hearts.” Written by Gail Simone and art by David Marquez. Cover art by David Marquez and Matthew Wilson (Gold Medalist). It is a brutal battle with Rogue and the other Uncanny X-Men versus Gaunt. The four new kids of this series (Jitter, Ransom, Deathdream and Calico come to the fight as well. Gail Simone’s book has been probably my favorite of the new X-books so far.

Amazing Spider-Man #61. “Inevitable Attraction.” Written by Joe Kelly and penciled by Ed McGuinness. Cover art was done by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz. The new creative team takes over ASM as Zeb Wells departs the series. This also kicks off “The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man” storyline where Spidey is recruited by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Doom to be his “hero.” I am not sure how I feel about seeing Spidey die a bunch of times, but I will, of course, give this new arc a chance.

Transformers #14. Written by Daniel Warren Johnson and art by Jason Howard. Cover art by Daniel Warren Johnson and Mike Spicer. This could be entitled “How Starscream got his Mojo Back.” It’s not, but it easily could be. We get another issue focused heavily on the Decepticon Villain Starscream. It has been a very consistently good series. Anxious to see more crossover with this and G.I. Joe.

Tim Waits #2. Written by Chip Zdarsky & David Brothers and illustrated by Marcus To & Marvin Sianipar. Cover art is by Marcus To. It is time travel in the world created by Chip Zdarsky. Lots of action and some weird time events. Can the present day people stop those from the future? I guess we’ll have to see.

Absolute Batman #2. “The 200” Part Two of Five. Written by Scott Snyder and art by Nick Dragotta. Cover art by Dragotta & Martin. Absolute Batman and Alfred team up and start a beautiful friendship…maybe. Oh, and we get the Absolute debut of one Selina Kyle.

Silence #1. Written by Evan K. Pozios and art & cover art by Alex Sanchez. A comic book artist needs a break after a major health scare. So he goes to a city named Silence. However, this does not seem like a good choice in the end. This mini series has not yet appeared in the CZL app, but it was an intriguing book from the company Afterlight Comics.

Sam and Twitch Case Files #8. Script by Todd McFarlane. Plot by McFarlane & Jon Goff. Art by Szymon Kudranski. Cover art is done by Raymond Gay & Mirko Colak. Sam and Twitch are finally back together after being separate for most of the series so far. Everything feels nicely wrapped up after this issue, though there is more coming for them.

Life #3. Written by Brian Azzarello & Stephanie Phillips and art by Daniel Žeželj. This has been a cool concept with this being a flip book, with two stories from different POVs. One story a heist and the other a prison break. DSTLRY has been releasing some really fun and enjoyable books so far.

The Mammoth #5. Written by Paul Tobin and art and cover art by Arjuna Sudini (Bronze Medalist). This series comes to a weird conclusion as the dead seem to find their place. This was a strange series that I am not sure had a overly satisfying ending.

Werewolf By Night: Red Band #4. Written by Jason Loo and penciled by Sergio Davila. E.M. Gist did the cover art. Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone tried to find a place where the overtly savage nature of the Werewolf by Night would not be bad. One would think that the Savage Land would be the place. It seems as if Ka-Zar may disagree.

Other books this week: Deadpool #8, Psylocke #1, Huge Detective #3, Domain #5 and Ultimate X-Men #9.

Shrinking S2 E6

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 “In a Lonely Place”

Jason Segal and Harrison Ford are absolutely on fire in this episode. Jimmy and Paul are hilarious and the writing was spectacular. They were here as kind of the commentors on the things going down.

Lots of relationships were straightened out here. Gaby and her sister. Sean and his father. Alice and Louis, via Brian.

However, it seems as if Liz is approaching a major conflict that might affect her marriage. I don’t like that. I hope that this show does not take it in the way that it looks like.

I want to go back to Segal and Ford. When they paddled up in the boat to see Sean’s father, I thought I was going to lose it. They are such a fantastic pairing and they are written with such smart dialogue.

I wonder where this season is headed as it feels like a bunch of the story has been wrapped up. It was extremely entertaining, but not sure where it is going.

EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week

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Week of November 11

Mid-November and we have a new crop of medalists. When we reach December and have the Year in Review, I will be totaling up these points to determine who the comic cover artist of the year. I will also be picking the best comic cover of the year. That will be coming in December. Meanwhile, here are this week’s covers.

Bronze Medalist

The Mammoth #5

Cover art by Arjuna Susini

The scary, white creatures around the characters are a stark difference and the color of the characters and the title pops off the cover.

Silver Medalist

The Spectacular Spider-Man #9

Variant Cover

Cover art by Josemaria Casanovas

A fun Kraven the Hunter cover trying to catch the Spider is a wonderfully excellent variant cover. I love the blue tint on the cover of this issue.

Gold Medalist

Uncanny X-Men #5

Cover art by David Marquez & Matthew Wilson

Funny enough, Todd had pulled a variant cover of Uncanny X-Men#5 for me, but I saw this cover and loved it, so I switched them. Gambit looks tremendous, cornered with a bunch of cats all around him. This has been a big year for Gambit and this cover fits right in with that.

Yellowjackets S2 E2

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“Edible Complex”

Well, bon appetite.

It looks like my original thought back when this started turned out to be true after all. The surviving girls tried to cremate Jackie’s corpse because Shauna was spending too much time with her (braiding her hair and putting on makeup). That was pretty creepy. The creep factor was only getting worse.

When they tried to burn the body, some falling snow stopped the fire from completely burning Jackie’s body, leaving a perfectly cooked frame, just right for eating.

Ooof.

This scene of the starving kids stuffing their faces with pieces of the charred body of Jackie was truly wild. It felt like the deep seeded creatures inside the girls all came out. Coach limped away in disgust. Ain’t no way that he doesn’t become another meal, another day.

Present day, Elijah Woods is here and has a connection with Misty. I am curious to see where this goes.

Kevyn is circling around Shauna in the disappearance of Adam Martin. He thinks he knows that Shauna had an affair with Adam, but he is still on the outside.

Lottie says that she was with Travis when he hanged himself. He was trying to reach a certain level of consciousness so he could see images like he did in the mountains. However, the machine button jammed and he wound up dying. I do not know if I trust Lottie. She is certainly suspcious.

Taissa is really flipping out too. She imagined her son came to her house after school to play with the new puppy, however that did not happen. We’ll see what that car crash will do to this story.

Yellowjackets has been wild so far and the mysteries continue to abound in this wilderness. What is going on? What is the symbol? Who was Taissa following when she almost ran off the cliff in her sleep?

Bates Motel S5 E9, E10

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“Visiting Hours”

“The Cord”

The rewatch of Bates Motel came to an end tonight as I watched episode nine and ten of season five. I did not remember any details of this finale so I had no idea of what was going to happen.

I was afraid that I would not feel that the end of this show would have a satisfying end. I was wrong.

It has been fairly clear the last season that this is not a prequel to the movie Psycho. It just had the character of Norman Bates and the setting in place, but they did not feel the need to keep things so they would line up with the movie.

I mean, Norman died at the end. That would make it difficult to have the movie come after this.

The scene between brothers with Dylan killing Norman in self defense, because Norman wanted him to. Dylan was shocked by the corpse of Norma at the dinner table. Freddie Highmore and Max Thieriot brought some amazing emotion and energy to this final confrontation.

What did feel like a letdown was the end of Alex Romero. The ending was always going to be about the Bates brothers and not Romero, but I loved Romero and Norma as a couple as I have mentioned several times so I wanted Alex to have some kind of retribution. Of course that was not going to happen. Alex’s emotions over the Norma body is what cost him his life. He should have killed Norman first, but he was not thinking, he was still in total grief.

I was very happy that Dylan and Emma wound up together. I was a little worried that they would no longer be together because Emma was mad about her mother being murdered by Norman. However, the end of the episode showed Emma, her daughter and Dylan meeting up and they shared a kiss. This was a wonderful moment that made me very happy. At least one of the great couples from Bates Motel made it through the series.

I am glad that I have made it through this series. It was a quality show that flew under the radar while it was on TV.