Author Archives: Doc

Argylle

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Here is the first real disappointing film of 2024. 

I have been looking forward to this movie since I first saw the trailer in 2023. It sounded great and the cast was outstanding. I avoided online reviews as much as I could, but I knew they were trending negative. Still, I hoped that the film would be one of those that may be in the middle with critics, but that would be still be entertaining.

Sadly, will Argylle was not terrible, it was not good either. Meh is a very good way to describe this film, the newest from director Matthew Vaughn.

According to IMDB, “Elly Conway, an introverted spy novelist who seldom leaves her home, is drawn into the real world of espionage when the plots of her books get a little too close to the activities of a sinister underground syndicate. When Aiden, a spy, shows up to save her (he says) from being kidnapped or killed (or both), Elly and her beloved cat Alfie are plunged into a covert world where nothing, and no one, is what it seems.”

The definite standout of the film was the performances of its two main protagonists, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Henry Cavill, who is featured heavily in the marketing, is a main character because he is not. He does not appear in much of the movie, mainly in the opening scene which was used quite a bit in the trailers. 

In fact, I hated the way Cavill was used after that opening scene. He was basically a figment of Bryce Dallas Howard’s imagination moving on and would show up to give her a pep talk.

Bryan Cranston is the main antagonist of the film and he is a basic villain without much development for his character. He was always just kind of menacing and that was about it. Catherine O’Hara played Elly’s mom and she had a minimal amount of screen time. She was more used than John Cena and Ariana DeBose, though, who were basically cameo rolls. Samuel L. Jackson was limited to watching a Lakers game for much of his time in the movie.

The movie was too convoluted with its plot and it tried to fool the audience several times that just served to confuse many and mess up the story. When it was just Howard and Rockwell on screen, the film was considerably better.

It was also way too long at almost 2 and a half hours. This needed to be trimmed considerably so it was between 1:45-2:00 hours at most. You could feel the length of the film.

The CGI was not good either. There were times when the cat, named Alfie in the film, was just ridiculous looking. There were plenty of moments too that you could see the green screen.

The film had a major reliance on exposition too, as there was a major info dump in the middle of the film when the twist arrived. The film had to explain things to us way too much and it slowed it down even more.

I was very disappointed with Argylle as I was hopeful that this could be a really fun spy adventure. Sadly, though there were some things positive to it, it is not a film that I would want to see again.

2.6 stars

The X-Files S3 E5

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“The List”

The X-Files meets The Green Mile.

Or maybe Marv from Sin City.

Any depiction of the electric chair is somewhat disturbing for me so this episode started off with me on edge. When the prisoner stated that he had a list of those he wanted to exact his revenge upon, returning from the beyond to kill them all, well, the show made it really creepy.

Yet, it turned out to be strangely satisfying despite being unresolved for Mulder and Scully.

J.T. Walsh had a sufficiently rotten turn as Warden Brodeur, a character that clearly had little redeeming qualities. His final fate, in a cool action sequence for the show, was worthwhile.

Written and directed by series creator Chris Carter, this episode is a solid stand-alone, monster-of-the-week episode that definitely had its place among the X-Files oeuvre. 

Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life (1983)

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And so we have reached the end of the 2024 Genre-ary DailyView: Musicals. After a full month of classical musicals or stage shows shot as a film, we wrap up this year’s Genre-ary with EYG Hall of Famers Monty Python and one of their funniest, if not chaotic films, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. 

Monty Python consisted of six main individuals: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. 

This film stitched together a series of sketches featuring the immense talents of these six men. It was shocking at times. At times it was raunchy. At times it was offensive. Above all else, it was, at all times, really funny.

Admittedly, there was a scene including vomit jokes, which I have NEVER been a fan of, but this was about as funny as I will find these scenes. 

There are some absolutely brilliant songs involved too including “Every Sperm is Sacred,” “Penis Song (Not The Noël Coward Song),” “Galaxy Song,” “Christmas in Heaven,” and “Meaning of Life.” These are uproariously funny. I love “Every Sperm…” and “Penis Song.”

Some of the skits do not work as well as others, but there are so many outstanding moments that I really was pleased that I scheduled this to conclude the Genre-ary. 

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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Week of January 29-Feb. 2

It is time once again to pick our medalists for the favorite covers of the week. I had narrowed the comics this week down to six contenders. That was better than last week, even with this being the fifth week of January.

Bronze Medal

Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War #2

Cover Art by David Aja

Deadly Hands: Gang War #1 was a winner of this award last month and this time the cover makes the podium at the bronze level. 

Silver Medal

Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #4

Cover Art by Juan Ferreyra

Another series that was a former winner of this award, Spine-Tingling has had some of the best covers of the year so far.

Gold Medal

Avengers Inc. #5

Cover Art by Daniel Acuña 

The final issue of Avengers Inc. has one of the most interesting and beautifully designed covers. There is a raw feel to the art that really works for the series. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E8

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“The Prophecy Comes True”

I was unaware that this would be the season one finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I had it in my head that the show would be 10 episodes. I don’t know why, but I did not anticipate that tonight was the final episode on Disney +.

Of course, it made everything happening during the last seven episodes make more sense. I did think that some of the episodes were rushing through their stories, but with this being the finale, I understood that more.

I also did not anticipate the late , great Lance Reddick showing up as Zeus in one of his final TV appearances before his way-too-soon death last year.

Percy stepped up big time in this episode. When he had his showdown with Adam Copeland’s Ares, I thought that was cool, but as he marched himself off to Mt. Olympus to go face to face with Zeus, well, that took some guts. 

I really think Walker Scobell showed some serious progression of his skills over this season. You could see the confidence in the young actor as the character became more his with each episode. To the point where he was absolutely a leader and a hero by the finale.

Season one was a lot of fun and I was surprised how much I looked forward to a new episode every Tuesday night. I did not miss a Tuesday night and I sure do hope that this will receive another season promptly. 

Oh, and the tag at the end of the episode….gold!

Topsy Turvy (1999)

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The penultimate night of January brings us the second to last film in the Genre-ary DailyView here at EYG. On Max tonight, I watched the musical from 1999 Topsy Turvy. This film has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Sadly, I just was not into it.

I do love Jim Broadbent, and he is great here. The movie was a biopic musical about Gilbert & Sullivan. They are great too.

I just did not find myself into the film. It had a hard time keeping my attention and I struggled to keep watching.

According to IMDB, “After their last production meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get them to work together again, which opens the way to The Mikado, one of the duo’s greatest successes.“

It felt very long, even longer than the actual runtime of 2 hours and 40 minutes. 

I felt sad that I could not get into this movie. It just never grabbed me and, despite the wonderful Jim Broadbent, I was just not actively engaged in the film.

42nd Street (1933)

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I went all the way back to 1933 for one of the most beloved and iconic musicals of the early days of cinema. Choreographed by the legendary Busby Berkeley, 42nd Street was a massive success.

According to IMDB, “Renowned Broadway producer/director Julian Marsh is hired to put together a new musical revue. It’s being financed by Abner Dillon to provide a starring vehicle for his girlfriend, songstress Dorothy Brock. Marsh, who is quite ill, is a difficult taskmaster who works long hours and continually pushes the cast to do better. When Brock breaks her ankle one of the chorus girls, Peggy Sawyer, gets her big chance to be the star. She also finds romance along the way.“

The final dance routines of the show were spectacular. I loved the title track, but most of the remainder of the songs were fine, at best.

I have to say that this was fine, but it did feel kind of old. That is not a fair criticism, I know. Still, I can’t get past the fact that it is a musical that does feel like it was made early in the film world.

I am glad that I watched it. It clearly was a classic of its time. And the dance routines at the end were sensational.

True Detective: Night Country S4 E3

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“Part Three”

Holy crap.

Okay, I was thinking that this episode was slow and there was not too much going down. I mean there was some minimal advancement on the case and there was some good character development, especially for Navarro.

Then, the last fifteen minutes or so, shit went crazy.

So much so that when the episode went to black, I was feeling uneasy and downright disturbed from the video on Annie’s phone and the unnatural warning from the injured  Dr. Anders Lundt, with his legs amputated. This supernatural twist was creepy as all hell and really punctuated the scene, with him making a comment about Navarro’s mom. Coincidentally, we found out earlier this episode what had happened to her.

We also discovered the fact that the six dead, frozen bodies most likely had not died of being frozen, that they were dead before they were frozen. 

I also found out that the season is now half over, which was shocking to me. There is so much going on right now that I hope they are able to nail the landing on this series because it is truly compelling at this point.

Moonlighting S4 E1, E2

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“A Trip to the Moon”

“Come Back Little Shiksa”

After the end of season three, with David and Maddie making love, season four went in a dark and downer direction with Maddie not sure where the relationship was going. So she ran off to Chicago.

This show just never worked well when it did not have David AND Maddie front and center.

I know part of it was Cybill Shepherd’s real life pregnancy as Maddie was hiding behind just about anything she could in these two episodes to hide her belly. Still, the way the story went, you just felt so bad for David, who was trying everything, and it was hard to understand what was going through Maddie’s head.

The two episodes had some fun things. There was a Honeymooners parody in a dream sequence with David as Ralph, Maddie as Alice, DiPesto as Trixie and Richie (David’s brother, played by Charles Rocket) as Norton. There was an appearance by Ray Charles singing in a dream sequence for David (“Hit the Road, Dave”). Episode two had a Claymation argument between Dave and Maddie, and Dave gets turned into a horny toad. John Goodman had a guest starring role. Dr. Joyce Brothers appeared to Maddie in the mirror too. 

There was just the magic missing. 

I know the fourth season is really a tough one. I hope on second watch, it will be better than I remember.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #79

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January 28, 2024

Welcome to the EYG Comic Cavalcade. 

Grabbed some back issues this week for the collection. There were some fun stuff including Champions #1 (that’s Vol. 1), A couple of older Marvel Team-Up including one with Spidey and the Cat, and an old X-Men issue that was a reprint of Along Came a Spider.

I picked up a couple of variant covers of Howard the Duck #1, the newest version of the character that came out last year. The cover included one by Skottie Young.

The highlight of the eBay adventures this week is grabbing the entire run of Groo at Image, issues #1-12. I won a bid on that just last night and discovered that I had won it just a few minutes ago. 

I also picked up a couple of comics that had been graded by CDC. I’m excited to share those when they arrive.

Books this week: 

Punisher #3. ”The Other Side of Terror.” Written by David Pepose and art by Dave Wachter. The cover art was done by Rod Reis. I thought this was the best issue of the new Punisher so far. It was spooky and scary and the Fearmaster felt like a cool villain for him and the end with a new version of Jigsaw looks promising.

Universal Monsters: Dracula #4. Written by James Tynion IV and drawn by Martin Simmonds. The series starring the Universal Monster’s Dracula concluded with this issue. It was a wonderful four issues, and you just had to feel for poor Renfield. 

Crashdown #1. Written by “Comic Tom” Garcia and Ryan Sargeant with art by Ben Templesmith. Picked this one up off the stand. It is from the company Whatnot Publishing, which I had never heard before. It is a fun book that has some kind of sea creature. 

Resurrection of Magneto #1. ”The Lightning Path“ Written by Al Ewing and art by Luciano Vecchio. The variant cover (which was the Cover of the Week) was by Stefano Caselli & Jesus Aburtov. Interestingly enough, the issue was more about Storm than Magneto as Storm was on the way to try and find him.

Superior Spider-Man #3. ”Plot Armor“ Written by Dan Slott and penciled by Mark Bagley. Spidey tries to impersonate Superior Spider-Man with Doc Ock in his headset in hopes of saving Anna Marie. This has been a decent series so far, though I am not sure I love where it’s heading.

Spider-Woman #3. Written by Steve Foxe and art by Carola Borelli. Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho did the cover.  Gang War continues as Jessica finds her son in a place where she least expected him. Shocking.

Immortal Thor #6. ”The Teller of the Tale.” Thor and Loki talk about a tale from their distant past and Thor sees the adventure in a new light. Thor does battle with a giant and something dealing with Marvel Comics is being set up. 

G.O.D.S. #4. Written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Valerio Schiti/ Mateus Manhanini did the cover art. This has been a weird ride so far. The Inbetweener is involved. Wyn and Doctor Strange make a fun pairing.

Daredevil: Black Armor #3. Written by D.G. Chichester and penciled by Netho Diaz. Mark Bagely and Romulo Fajardo Jr did the cover art. Matt Murdock has to try to survive the dangers of Baron Von Strucker. The flashback series has been decent so far.

Tenement #8. Written by Jeff Lemire and art by Andrea Sorrentino. The latest in the horror building story by Jeff Lemire kept going on with the potential sacrifice of Isaac. The crew heads to the second floor.

Other books read: Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 #4, Newburn #14, Project: Cryptid #5, The Schlub #6, Power Pack: Into the Storm #1, Damn Them All #12, Hexagon Bridge #5 and Slow Burn #4.

Masters of the Universe: Revolution

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The sequel to the Masters of the Universe: Revelations from filmmaker Kevin Smith dropped on Netflix this weekend with five-episodes that ran around a half hour each. This made the series a simple binge and satisfying story with some classic characters if the 1980s.

Another fun tidbit for the series was hearing the voice talents of Mark Hamill and William Shatner working together. Having Luke and Kirk together in any manner is a Geek dream.

The story basically continues from the Revelations series as the characters were dealing with fall-out of everything that happened there when Prince Adam’s father fell ill, so badly sick that he was not long for the world.

There were some solid emotional bits in the story and some good character arcs, especially for Evil-Lynn. Her eventual redemption was one of the most satisfying of the entire series. The show also went into the origin of Skeletor, tying him to Adam in an unexpected way.

There were a lot of voices on the internet that spewed out venom and hatred over the Revelations series when it first came out on Netflix. It got so bad that it was pretty clear that Kevin Smith had been discouraged over it. You could hear the change come over him during his podcast Fatman Beyond. 

However, it seemed as if this time there are many more voices of positivity with this series. I hope Kevin takes in the well-deserved love and it makes him feel better. I really enjoyed Revelations, perhaps more so than Revolution. 

This series feels much more like a love letter to the original series than the previous one had. Revelations felt like he took the characters from the series and made them into deeper characters and put them on some arcs that may not have been popular, but were very interesting and thrilling. Here, it felt as if it were more about the story with the characters taking a bit of a back seat. With the fewer number of episodes, I think that was a wise choice.

The music/score of the animated show was sensational. Some of the music swelled with energy and passion, creating the perfect tone for most of the scenes. 

The animation was very good too. There are some truly beautiful shots of the action and the imagery of the surroundings.

The biggest drawback for me is another thing that connects it to the original series. I did not watch the He-Man show back in the 80’s and the weird, quippy dialogue/patter was cringey at times. When Lynn started to sing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song, I could almost hear my eyes rolling into the back of my head. I understand that is the tone of the series and that it did have a place, but it was fairly annoying at times.

Otherwise, I think this was a satisfactory entry into the Master of the Universe mythos and longtime fans should find a lot here to praise instead of taking to the internet to rip down. 

South Pacific (1958)

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Today’s Genre-ary DailyView sends us back into the 1950s to one of the classic musicals of all time, South Pacific.

According to IMDB, “On a South Pacific island during World War II, love blooms between a young nurse and a secretive Frenchman who’s being courted for a dangerous military mission.”

It is really two love stories, one with the young nurse Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor) and the Frenchman Emile (Rossano Brazzi) and the other with Lt. Joseph Cable (John Kerr) and a native girl Liat (France Nuyen). Both relationship, intriguingly enough, are derailed by racism. 

Nellie rejects Emile when she found out the he had had two children with a Polynesian years before, one who was now dead. Cable decided he could not marry Liat because she was a native girl and not white. It may not have been specifically said out loud, but that is absolutely the reason.

That makes me wonder about our main heroes of this romantic musical. I guess this is a product of the 1950s and, sure, both reconsidered their racism eventually (although Cable came around too late), but the idea that their mindsets were appropriate was in the film.

I was surprised when I saw that Ray Walston was in this film, and providing the comedy relief (at least part of the time). He was some of my favorite parts of the film.

Again, there are some very well known classic songs in this musical including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” and “There is Nothing Like A Dame.”

It was a little long, but I did like the music and it is always great to see Ray Walston. South Pacific is a classic for a reason, but I did not expect the racism to be a major theme of the story.

Death and Other Details S1 E2

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“Sordid”

I got a chance to watch episode two of the new Hulu series, Death and Other Details featuring Mandy Patinkin as one of the world’s great gentlemen detectives, Rufus Cotesworth. 

Rufus goes about interviewing all of the passengers on the ship about the murder of Keith, Rufus’s friend and assistant who was on the ship undercover. Keith had been playing a role as such a jerk on the ship and wound up being murdered. Or was it because of his jerk-ness or was it tied to the old case of the murder of Imogene’s mother?

Mandy Patinkin is always great and he is, at this point, the reason to be watching this. I am still feeling my way along on this show, hoping to get more enthralled with the mystery than what I have so far.

Rufus certainly has shaken up the rest of the passengers, looking to see what he can find.