The Watcher breaks his vow once again… his vow to never interfere… and three other Watchers were paying attention. Obviously, this is what will be heading to the finale of the show.
This was a cool episode with some characters that we do not usually see much about. Ironheart, Wong, Valkyrie, Okoye, and Ying Nan(voiced by Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh) made an intriguing group of characters.
I have never been a great fan of post apocalyptic stories. I mean, they are okay, but it is not my preferential choice, so this episode started off at a disadvantage. However, I did think that the use of the Emergence from the Eternals movie was a neat way to set it up. The show is clearly also trying to set up Riri Williams for the upcoming Ironheart show by featuring her here.
I did like the idea of Mysterio taking control of what remained of the world after the Emergence. It made sense and, in Marvel, there have been plenty of futuristic books where Mysterio played a huge role.
I did love the ending salvo of the show, with the Watcher tired of seeing the same tragedy every time and getting involved, ever so slightly. Looking forward to where this will go.
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?
E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier
The other film I rented off Fandango at Home/Vudu was entitled I Saw the TV Glow, and Zi had heard plenty of buzz about this, in both positive and negative ways. I thought this would be a good film to give a try.
I have to say that this was very surreal, dream-like and metaphoric. It was a difficult movie to follow and so much of it was shot intentionally to create that feeling of confusion or interpretive.
According to IMDB, “Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.”
One of the film’s main themes deal with reality and identity… who they were on the inside. I do believe that this was a metaphor showing the way some people can deny whom they are, pretending that they are something else. I have a feeling that this movie will reverberate with some people considerably more because of that theme.
I also believe that there are several ways that this movie could be interpreted and that no one way is exact. Since this narrative is not one with straight-forward situations and answers, the audience member brings a lot of what they infer with them centered around their own personal knowledge and background. That makes this material quite rich.
The film was trippy and psychedelic in the best ways. Some people are going to look upon this movie with disdain for any number of reasons, but I was fascinated with it and I was intrigued with what was happening with these characters. I’m not sure how many times I would watch this movie on rewatches, but the first time experience was worthwhile of my time.
This was one that I was not anxious to see. However, I had hear some of the buzz for Sebastian Stan’s powerhouse performance as Donald Trump and, since it became available to rent on Vudu, I decided to give it a chance.
Stan does a tremendous job in portraying Trump, not just by imitating him or parodying him, but by using certain mannerisms to get across what he is trying to show.
The film takes the young Donald Trump and shows you how he went from that young guy who was collecting rent for his father to a mogul that would do whatever he wanted under any circumstance.
Ironically, the film scenes may have been stolen by Jeremy Strong, who played Roy M. Cohn, Trump’s lawyer who helped teach the young Trump the rules of business that became such a major aspect of Trump’s life. After Trump could no longer get anything from Cohn, he tossed him aside like yesterday’s news. Strong’s performance was even better than that of Stan’s, albeit in less screen time.
The film does a good job of displaying a man who would become one of the most polarizing figures in American history.
Doctor Who returned to Disney + with the fifth special, Joy to the World, a Christmas story featuring Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan.
I believed Nicola Coughlan was going to be the next companion, Joy, but that turned out to be incorrect. She becomes even more as she becomes a star and it turned out to be a star shining over Jerusalem in the year 0001.
The Doctor had to figure everything out by rushing through the Time Hotel, where he had to spend a year waiting to be able to access the Time Hotel once again. During that time, he befriended a co-worker at the hotel, Anita, and spent the year befriending her and spending time with her in chairs, something he realized that he did not have on the Tardis.
I loved the section where the Doctor had to wait a year and then just went and told his old self the briefcase code, which he had been told by himself. It was a loop and I loved how clever it was to have him find out the code by having himself tell it.
The whole time travel idea can be difficult, but I did like how this episode removed the potential time paradoxes with the Time Hotel.
This was emotional, joyous and a treat during this holiday season. I have loved Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and I hope he has a good long run as the character. I am looking forward to the next season and the potential return, at least for some episodes, of Ruby.
With Christmas in the middle of the week and no school because of Christmas break, my mind gets mixed up. I was focused on a lot of different things, and I did not think about Skeleton Crew having a new episode last night. In fact, with Doctor Who coming up and a list of other things I wanted to watch, I would not have thought about Skeleton Crew had I not seen mktoon (aka Michael Vogel of the Geek Buddies) post a message on X about how Skeleton Crew is always great.
HOW IS #SkeletonCrew SO CONSISTENTLY GREAT?! This might be the most #StarWars any Star Wars series has been.
Once I saw this Tweet (or whatever they are called now), this show jumped to the head of the list for the day.
What a great episode. Things are really moving forward quickly, including the ultimate betrayal of Jod.
This show does a great job of keeping these characters kids and showing us that they are still kids. The scene of the pillow fight on the bed was a perfect example of showing these characters as children. Many times children characters do not act like children characters. In Skeleton Crew, these kids are kids.
Jod taking over the captain’s role was a huge betrayal to the kids, who were as brave as they could be, but were in way over their heads. When Wim stepped up with a lightsaber, I believed that we were going to get something magical, but with him holding the lightsaber in the wrong direction, things did not go well. I guess Wim was lucky he did not cut off part of his body.
Jod and SM-33 are together now, as the kids escaped from Jod through a specific tunnel. This scene was right out of Goonies, with the kids finding the treasure of One-Eyed Willy. There are also booty traps (Boobie traps… that’s what I said, booty traps).
Skeleton Crew is one of the most entertaining Star Wars shows in a long time and it really had that Star Wars vibe to it this week. With the two groups now separated, and people chasing after Jod, who continues to be called by different names, the show is flying into the second half of the season in a positive way.
Tell us this is the final season without saying it is the final season.
What If gives us a Howard the Duck/Darcy episode. They’re married and she gave birth to an egg.
What?
What If took one of the worst episodes from season one and gave it a sequel and made it one of the strangest, weirdest episodes of the entire run.
What If, the comic book, would have issues that were really bizarre because they could do anything they wanted, and this is a perfect example of that.
I do love Howard the Duck and I would be all for a Howard the Duck series, live action or animated. This did feel a bit much.
There were a bunch of surprising cameos from the people chasing after this egg including Zeus, Thanos and the Black Order, Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, Dark Elves, the Grandmaster …all in pursuit of this egg.
I will say that I found this to be too silly at times and that a lot of the humor did not work for me, and I am a person whose Marvel’s humor almost always works. This might be an episode that I like more on second watch, but for now, this episode was down my list.
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier
However, I really thought this was going to end with a tragedy and I just did not want to see it happen. Thankfully, Jimmy arrived at the train station just as Louis, who had been rebuked by his friend who said that he “got drunk and murdered someone”, was about to step out in front of an oncoming train. I really thought this was going to happen and I could not handle the season coming to an end with such a horrible tragedy.
So many great things happened:
Derek forgave Gaby and brought her mother to Thanksgiving.
Brian and Charlie hired a nanny, and had Liz do two days a week. It was Derek’s idea at first.
Julie kidnapped Paul again… this time to go to Gaby’s Thanksgiving. He kept saying he was under duress.
Paul stood up and gave a beautiful speech about the people at the party being people that he did not have to hide his tremors from. It was an amazing scene and Harrison Ford knocked it out of the park.
Sean had a nice scene with his father *finger poke*
Summer called for help from Jimmy when she was shoplifting abortion medicine.
Jimmy worked with Paul to try and get better after admitting that he was not okay.
The scene with Jimmy and Louis at the train station was legendary as they sat and tried to guess what other people’s jobs were. It echoed back to the past when Louis and his wife used to do that.
This was a wonderful episode to wrap up a pretty solid season overall. Shrinking will be returning for a season three on Apple TV +.
This is the top ten Geek stories of 2024, according to EYG!
#10. Diddy. This should probably be higher up this list, but I just did not want to have such a negative story up the list. It needed to be mentioned… so there… I’m done.
#9. Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show. Jon Stewart returned to the Daily Show for Mondays during the election season… and decided to stay longer. I know I have missed him.
#8. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ends. In December of this year, Taylor Swift’s incredibly successful tour came to a close. 21 months and $2 Billion of ticket sales. Yeah that was billion with a B!
#7. TikTok Banned. The US has decided that TikTok will be banned because it is some kind of Chinese data collection. It is scheduled to be banned on January 19, 2025. Supreme Court gave its okey-dokey. Will it actually happen?
#6. Drones in New Jersey. Government called them drones… however, the conspiracy theorists and UFO supporters believe something else. I wonder if we will ever truly know the truth.
#5. “I’m Just Ken” steals the show at the Oscars. Though the song did not win the Oscar, the performance absolutely stole the show. Ryan Gosling and a gaggle of Kens danced and sang and blew the crowd away.
#4. Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson on Netflix. This was a massive match, but the live stream on Netflix did not handle things well. I know I was unable to watch it because of the infamous spinning wheel of doom. Jake Paul won, by the way.
#3. Deadpool and Wolverine. The only MCU movie this year was a massive hit with Deadpool and Wolverine teaming up and becoming the highest grossing rated R movie in history, with over 1.33 billion dollars in box office worldwide. It was also the highest grossing opening weekend of the year with $211 million.
#2. Inside Out 2 dominates. The biggest movie of the year is Pixar’s Inside Out 2, making almost 1.7 billion dollars at the world wide box office. It was a huge hit for Pixar and was one of the reasons Disney made over $5 Billion at the box office this year.
#1. Robert Downey Jr. returns to the MCU…as Dr. Doom? Staggering news coming out of San Diego Comic Con this year as Marvel Studios announced that RDJ is going to be playing Victor Von Doom in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars films. The news blew up the internet for weeks afterward as everyone had an opinion.
Anna Devane was one of my favorite characters on General Hospital mainly because she was an agent for the WSB and she could kick the butt of anyone messing with her. I loved that and so, in honor of the awesome Anna Devane, this is the kick ass female award.
We have ten females who kicked plenty of ass in their individual places. Some are comic characters, some are TV/movie characters and we even have a professional wrestler.
The Anna Devane Kick Ass Female Award
Previous winners: Rey (Star Wars), Mockingbird (Marvel Comics), Wonder Woman (DCEU), The Shirewolves, Captain Marvel, Kamala Harris, Wanda Maximoff, Pearl, Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Fargo season five)
Top 10 Kick Ass Females of 2024
#10. Liz Danvers (True Detective: Night Country). Jodie Foster brought a bad ass female to the snowy world of Alaska. She had all kinds of troubles, but you just knew she would find her way thorugh.
#9. Anora (Anora). Mikey Madison was a force of nature as the titular character in this movie from 2024. She was a tornado dealing with the Russians and she was more than a handful.
#8. Black Canary (Black Canary: The Best of the Best). The new DC series featured the writing of Tom King and Black Canary in a tournament with Lady Shiva to discover the best hand-to-hand fighter in the universe.
#7. Zatanna (Zatanna: Bring Down the House). A flashback series showed us how Zatanna came into her own as a member of the Justice League.
#6. Laura (Deadpool & Wolverine, Laura Kinney: Wolverine, NYX). Laura, X-23, returned in the Void during the awesome cameo reveals, but she played a major part with Logan in the movie. It was a real feel good moment… and she sliced Juggernaut’s feet off. Ooooooh. We could extend this one to the comics too as X-23 is known as Wolverine and has her own series, plus a role in NYX.
#5. Storm (X-Men ’97, Storm). It was a big year for Storm. She was a major character in X-Men ’97, she joined the Avengers in Marvel Comics, and she got her own series. Marvel has big plans for Ororo Munroe.
#4. Rhea Ripley (WWE). Rhea “Bloody” Ripley! The Eradicator. One of the biggest stars in the WWE, Rhea took a huge step in her character development when she became a face when her boyfriend Dominic Mysterio turned on her and left her. Rhea is a superstar.
#3. Abigail (Abigail). Alishia Weir brought a serious kick ass girl, a ballerina vampire who has been feeding for centuries. Abigail dominated the film and was incredibly fun.
#2. Elphaba (Wicked). She almost won this award this year and she may be a leading candidate for next year. Elphaba became more and more powerful as the film progressed and the whole “Defying Gravity” sequence at the end of the film was amazing!
And the winner of the Anna Devane Kick Ass Female of the Year Award is…
#1. Agatha Harkness (Agatha All Along, What If…?, Marvel Comics)
It was Agatha all along. Played by the wondrous Kathryn Hahn, Agatha Harkness has risen from a lesser Marvel Comics character to a superstar. After her star turn in WandaVision in 2020, Agatha returned in this year’s surprise hit Agatha All Along on Disney +. Meanwhile, in the comics, Marvel returned Agatha to the young status, making her much closer to Kathryn Hahn. She was in the best episode of What If…? so far co-starring with Kingo. Agatha is one witch whose world is at her fingertips. Down, Down, Down the road… Down the Witches Road…
In honor of those movies that feature large casts without a clear protagonist, it is time for the Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award. This has been around since 2019 and has had a strong list of movies win, as seen below.
The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award
Previous Winners: Avengers: Endgame (2019), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), In the Heights (2021), Mass (2021), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Oppenheimer (2023)
Runners-Up: I considered giving this award to the movie I saw today, A Complete Unknown, but I decided that there is too much of a lead character in Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, despite the fact that the cast surrounding him was excellent. Another Chalamet film this year was Dune: Part Two that could have been a winner in this category. Another potential Oscar film was in consideration for this category with Conclave, the story of choosing a new pope. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever had a great cast, especially of young actors that deserve recognition in this category. I loved Wicked, but again, that film is more of a two person lead and may not be right for the ensemble award. Alien: Romulus was a fantastic movie with an ensemble that wound up as fodder for the Xenomorphs. Civil War was a strong film earlier in the year and its cast had a tough story to delve into. Emilia Perez had a strong ensemble as did The Piano Lesson, both on Netflix.
Winner of the Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year is…
Saturday Night
The film focuses on the opening night for SNL, as a group of performers running around unsure if they were actually going to get on the air. There are some great performances among the cast and the roles are beautifully cast. There may be some weaknesses in the script, but the cast itself is impeccable.
I do like Bob Dylan, but I would not say that I love him. I enjoy some of his music and I got to enjoy him more when he became part of the Traveling Wilburys in the late 1980s. Even so, I was looking forward to this biopic A Complete Unknown from director James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet.
I had an undeniably good time with this movie as I was completely entertained.
This film takes a look at Dylan’s life and career spanning from 1961 until 1964. The first part of the film is the typical musical biopic with many of the same beats that you see in all of these, but, in the second part of the film, the story becomes less about Bob Dylan and his genius at writing and creating music, and more about his change from the basic folk music style into something more electric, which caused a great deal of anxiety among the folk community and the fans of the world.
If you excuse the pun, Timothée Chalamet is electric with his performance of the enigmatic musician. He absolutely becomes Bob Dylan and he does an amazing job here, as Chalamet not only acts, but he plays the guitar and sings the songs. And he does all of this with a wonderful proficiency that never breaks the illusion that he is building as Bob Dylan. It is an Oscar-worthy performance in my opinion.
The cast around Chalamet is sensational too. Edward Norton as Pete Seeger does a fantastic job as Dylan’s mentor before he pulls away when Dylan added electric guitar to his repertoire. Boyd Holbrook has a precious few scenes that he completely dominates as Johnny Cash. Scoot McNairy played a sick and unable to talk Woody Guthrie, an idol to Dylan and someone who inspired Dylan to push on. Monica Barbaro played folk singer Joan Baez, who carried on an affair with Dylan but struggled with some of his choices and Elle Fanning played Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie, whose performance was fine, but whose character did not make a lot of sense and so was the weakest part of an amazing film.
The music of Bob Dylan (and a few others) was used brilliantly to keep the energy of the film flying through most of the two hour and twenty minute runtime. I could not stop tapping my toes or singing under my breath with the music as we got all of Bob Dylan’s classics from the time period (one of my favorites- Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door came out in 1973).
Admittedly, we do not go into too much depth of the characters in the film. We do not learn anything about Bob Dylan that wasn’t common knowledge, but I do not think that was a negative necessarily. There is an aura around Bob Dylan and this movie definitely creates that aura around Timothée Chalamet.
I loved this movie and I think it has a chance to make the top 10 of the year in a few days when I make the list. It is certainly going to find its way on the top 30 list for sure. I found this thoroughly entertaining and engrossing and I loved hearing this music. I was impressed with the performances, with Chalamet standing out as a major success.
Elton John is one of the greatest musicians from the 1970s and early ’80s, and there have been several versions about his life from A Life in Song to Rocketman. The latest Elton John documentary came to Disney + this month called Elton John: Never Too Late.
Fans of Elton John should love this documentary. The music is a highlight as they use some of his greatest songs as a soundtrack for the doc. There are moments in Elton John’s life that could have had more details developed within the doc.
Some of my own personal favorite parts of the doc included the section involving John Lennon, the details surrounding Elton John’s suicide attempt and his initial relationship with Bernie Taupin.
I also enjoyed how the doc used animated sections to visualize a series of interviews or tape recording that were used in the doc for the first time. Some of the pain from Elton John’s life was tough to hear and I appreciate how he was willing to go into the story for the doc.
I did enjoy the new song, ‘Never Too Late’ with Brandi Carlile, that played over the credits of the documentary.
This was an engaging documentary, but it could have gone into more depth than it did. However, it does touch on some things that are intriguing and the music is fantastic.
As the year is coming to an end, I went to Fandango At Home to see if I could find several films that I missed during 2024. I picked up a few rentals to watch over the next couple of days. The first one I watched was A Different Man, an A24 film starring Sebastian Stan and directed by Aaron Schimberg.
According to IMDB, “Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, but his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.“
There are many A24 films that are like this one, though different. There are wild, bizarre situations that seem to be taken in a normal, typical way. In this case, there is a sci-fi technique that led to Edward, who had Neurofibromatosis- a genetic condition that sees tumors grow on the body, to fixing his face, and it just was a way to change his appearance in the film.
Stan was excellent as the twitchy, malformed Edward. His change of facial appearance did not truly change him at all. It just opened some areas up to Edward, but he was just as uncertain and shaky as he ever was.
Adam Pearson played Oswald, another misshapen man, who brought himself into the play Edward was working in and kind of took over the stage. Pearson was amazing in the role and he had a complex character who seemed to be trying to take over the play while still being extremely likable.
Renate Reinsve played Ingrid, the playwright who had lived next door to Edward, gave a fantastic performance. She was very compelling with her relationship with Edward and Oswald.
I thought this was a very interesting film that was difficult to watch at times. The scenes where the tumors were being peeled off Edward’s face was horrific. Still, it is interesting that the film clearly is saying that the looks were not going to make everything better and that Edward regretted his decision in the end. Sebastian Stan did a great job in this role.
“What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier”
One of the strength of the What If show is taking characters who would not usually work together or you may not expect to be together. Episode one had Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner. Episode two was Agatha and Kingo. Now, we get Red Guardian and Winter Soldier.
David Harbour is a gem. His work as the Red Guardian is so silly and over the top that it works, especially when paired with the stoic, more quiet Winter Soldier. This is clearly a “buddy cop” style of episode with the two main protagonists being pursued by Bill Foster, aka Goliath, once again voiced by Laurence Fishburne.
The pairing kicks off when Red Guardian prevents the Winter Soldier from killing Howard Stark and his wife as we see in Captain America: Civil War, and then they wind up thrust together into Las Vegas.
This was the episode from where they dropped a clip after last year’s season two, hinting to us that season three was closer than we thought.
They had some nice moments between Red Guardian and Bucky too, as the episode was more than just a bunch of action strung together. The scene where Red Guardian helps Bucky remember about Coney Island was very sweet, and it was obviously important to Bucky.
I found it odd that Oscar nominated America Ferrara did a voice of a secondary side character, Ranger Morales who teamed up with Bill Foster to chase after Red Guardian and Winter Soldier. That seemed to be a huge casting for such a minor character who, as far as I know, has no connection in Marvel Comics (After some research, I discovered there was an Agent Morales who worked for SHIELD that perhaps this character was based upon).
I love how What If…? has been using different styles to tell their stories. First episode was a Kaiju/monster story, episode two was Old Hollywood and this is a buddy cop tale. It shows the variety that the show can present effectively.
Season Three Episodes So Far
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E3 What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier
This has been a big year for animation and that means this was going to be a tough award to pick. Of course, it is not just animation for a voice over. It could be a character on a show in a helmet that you never see their face. It could be a mo-cap character. There are a ton of choices.
“I am Groot” Voice Acting Award
Previous Winners: Robin Williams (Aladdin- honorary), Auli’i Cravalho (Moana), Andy Serkis (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War), Ryan Reynolds (Detective Pikachu), Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Jeffrey Wright and Chadwick Boseman (What If…?), Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Bradley Cooper (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)
Runners-Up: Let’s start off with one of the toughest jobs of the year. Chris Hemsworth did the voice of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime and had to step into the shoes of iconic EYG Hall of Famer Peter Cullin. And he did a tremendous job in Transformers One. Another film with big shoes to fill was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Noa was a new protagonist voiced by Owen Teague, who took over the franchise from Andy Serkis. Tom Hardy was the best part of Venom: The Last Dance as he was the voice of Venom as well as Eddie Brock. The Wild Robot had two great performances from Lupita Nyong’o as Roz and Pedro Pascal as Fink. Hamish Linklater was our new animated Batman in Prime’s Batman: The Caped Crusader. Maya Hawke was awesome as the voice of the antagonist in Inside Out 2, Anxiety. Just today, we heard Kathryn Hahn return to the role of Agatha Harkness in one of the best episodes of What If…? ever, and her voice brought the power of this character. Mark Hamill is an iconic voice actor and he continued as Skeletor in Masters of the Universe: Revolutions. Lenore Zann delivered one of the most powerful lines in all of animation this year when she said “I can’t feel you” as Rogue clutched Gambit’s dead body at the end of episode five of X-Men ’97. Alison Sealy-Smith was exceptional in X-Men ’97 as Storm. To be fair, there are so many possible choices from X-Men ’97 because that show was epic.
This year’s winner is also from the show, X-Men ’97.
AJ LoCascio, as Gambit (X-Men’97)
“The name’s Gambit. Remember it.“
He was only in half of the season of X-Men ’97, but he absolutely killed it. Then, episode five of the show is one of the best episodes of TV this entire year. Gambit was at the center of that show and was the massive emotional beat.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 