Author Archives: Doc

Earth Girls are Easy (1989)

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It’s late in the day and I needed a film for the Genre-ary DailyView. The scheduled film for the day was Earth Girls are Easy.

According to IMDB, “Three furry (and funny) aliens travel around the universe in a spaceship and receive a broadcast showing human females. They are fascinated by these shapely creatures and discover that the broadcast came from Southern California on Earth. Meanwhile, Valley girl Valerie Gail feels her cold fiancé Dr. Ted Gallagher is slipping away and decides to seduce him. Instead, she catches him cheating on her with a nurse, throws him out, smashes his things and refuses to see him again. The aliens’ spaceship crash lands in Valerie’s swimming pool – putting a decided damper on her future wedding plans in Las Vegas. She brings them into her home; and the aliens prove to be quick learners and absorb American popular culture and language through television“

The movie had a surprisingly great cast including Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, Michael McKeon, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Charles Rocket, Larry Linville, Rick Overton, and Julie Brown.

Julie Brown was introduced to me from the Dr. Demento Show with her classically inappropriate song, “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun.” Brown co-wrote this movie and performed several of the songs, the title track “Earth Girls are Easy,” “I Like ’em Big and Stupid,” and “Cause I’m A Blonde.”

This film is really simple and pretty stupid. It has some funny moments, but it is so crazy that it has a hard time keeping a consistent tone. 

This is harmless, but just really dumb. Jeff Goldblum is always great. Jim Carrey was great here. Otherwise, it is a basic B movie with some funny songs.

EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week

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Week of January 22nd

I have made an adjustment to the Favorite Comic Cover of the Week. Starting this week, I will place a Top 3, giving a Bronze, a Silver and a Gold Medal for my favorite cover of the week.

BRONZE MEDAL WINNER

Boom! Studios

Slow Burn #4

Cover Art: Matt Taylor

Another great use of color gold and silver. 

SILVER MEDAL WINNER

Image Comics

Bone Orchard: Tenement #8

Cover Art: Andrea Sorrentino

Love the design of the maze ahead of the face on the cover. The colors are a great blend too.

GOLD MEDAL WINNER

Marvel Comics

Resurrection of Magneto #1

Cover Art: Stefano Caselli & Jesus Aburtov

Variant Cover

Virgin Cover

This is an absolutely beautiful cover, using the negative space to show the red Magneto suit. This is the cover B of the new mini series from Marvel Comics.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E7

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Spoilers

“We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of”

I have really enjoyed this new series of the Percy Jackson shows on Disney +. Episode 7 has found Percy, Annabeth and Grover entering the Underworld, and in search of Hades in order to find the Master Bolt and save Percy’s mother.

It wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded.

Who knew, but the Master Bolt was inside Percy’s bag. However, it was not Percy’s bag, but Ares’s. Ares had some kind of manipulative reason that he needed Percy to bring the bolt to the Underworld. We don’t know why yet, but I always love to see Adam Copeland.

We see some flashbacks to Percy as a child with his mother trying to get him into schools. The schools kept turning her down because of the way Percy was. (I have to say… every time I have tried to type the word Percy, in my head, I think Harry. I wonder why…)

When Percy and Grover came face to face with Hades, they discovered Ares’s lies. Of course, Hades isn’t going to help them without something on the line. 

We get a cool sequence with Cerberus too. The three headed dog that guards the Underworld chased our heroes around. The CGI looked really good for a TV show.

Percy and Ares faced off at the very end of the episode, setting up a huge showdown next week.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has been excellent all season long. It does feel as if the show is a touch rushed, but it is a lot of fun.

The X-Files S3 E3

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Spoilers

“D.P.O.”

Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black showed up as guest appearances on the X-Files episode “D.P.O.” 

Ribisi is Electro, who loved video games at the arcade, attracted to his former special needs reading teacher.

Okay, he’s not actually Electro, but he may as well be. He was struck by lightning and survived and somehow gained some electrical powers. 

He was out to gain the love of his former teacher, played by Karen Witter. 

It was a pretty decent episode because you were never sure what Mulder and Scully could do against Ribisi. Because of that, the intensity of the episode was high.

Shrek: The Musical (2013)

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Today, for the Genre-ary DailyView, I went to Vudu and rented Shrek: The Musical. It is a recorded version of the stage show that was based on the Dreamworks movie, Shrek.

The story was fairly consistent with the Mike Myers movie. The costumes and designs of the characters and setting was fantastic and really took the stage show into an awesome look. It’s amazing with the creativity of the set designs that were able to bring this animated movie to life.

Brian d’Arcy James played Shrek the ogre and Sutton Foster played Princess Fiona. Both did an excellent job making these iconic characters their own.

The play had a whole new list of songs written for the show, although it did end with the I’m a Believer, just as the original movie did. The music was fun and clever, working very well for the story. 

Daniel Breaker had a difficult job, trying to fill the shoes of Eddie Murphy as Donkey. He did a decent job in a role that was always going to be a challenge.

I really do like this type of film, showing a Broadway play as it is on the stage, much like they did with Hamilton and Kinky Boots. I would love to see more of these.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

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A school delay has given me the chance to do the Genre-ary DailyView this morning and the scheduled film today was the 1953 classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

There were not as many songs as I thought there might be, but the most famous one is clearly “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” as performed by Monroe.

The pairing of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell really worked well in this movie, as the entire bit depended on the chemistry between the two of them as unlikely friends. Marilyn Monroe’s character, Lorelei, loves diamonds and Russell’s Dorothy has a sarcastic head on her shoulders. The duo are the backbone of the movie.

There are some funny moments in the film, as they played the situations into fancy. 

According to Rotten Tomatoes, “Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) is a beautiful showgirl engaged to be married to the wealthy Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan), much to the disapproval of Gus’ rich father, Esmond Sr., who thinks that Lorelei is just after his money. When Lorelei goes on a cruise accompanied only by her best friend, Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell), Esmond Sr. hires Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid), a private detective, to follow her and report any questionable behavior that would disqualify her from the marriage.“

Director Howard Hawks provides a lavish production that can just barely stand up to the power of its two leading women. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are so great together and they are absolutely the reason to see this movie.

True Detective: Night Country S4 E2

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Spoilers

“Part 2”

So, after the weird and supernatural feel of the first episode last week, this week’s True Detective is a lot of procedural investigations, questions (both the right and wrong questions) and interactions among characters.

At the end of last episode, a ghost had led his former wife to a group of bodies frozen in the ice. Turned out they were scientists working at a station out in the Alaskan night.

How they wound up in a frozen pile, naked, with their clothes folded neatly in piles nearby. 

I must say that when the hand broke off and the body screams, I jumped. One of them survived! 

And it looked as if the scientists have some kind of connection to the case of Annie’s murder from six years before. There is a spiral tattoo that plays a prominent part this the mystery. Danvers and Evangeline (and a throwback to season 1).

Raymond Clark was not among the mass of frozen bodies, indicating that he might still be alive and out there.

Another week and the mystery is becoming bigger as we go. I enjoyed the characters quite a bit and I look forward to seeing where this goes next.

The X-Files S2 E24, E25 and S3 E1, E2

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Spoilers

“Our Town”

“Anasazi”

“The Blessing Way”

“Paper Clip”

I wanted to finish off season two of the X-Files with the final two episodes. However, episode 25 “Anasazi” left off on a cliffhanger and dropped the old TO BE CONTINUED signal. So I decided to go ahead and watch season 3 episode 1. 

Then, that episode did the same thing. It was so tense and anxious, that I had to go on to epside 2.

“Our Town” was a creepy small town that were killing people and eating them to keep themselves young. This was a truly weird episode with some frightening ideas in it. The masked fellow with the giant axe. 

Meanwhile, the next three episodes all focused on the series’ underlying mythology and the governmental conspiracy about aliens and the projects that were being run on abductees. It was three episodes of intensity and a huge reminder how much I absolutely HATED Cigarette Smoking Man. Not just as hate him cause he is an awesome villain, but HATE him- please put a bullet in his head.

These three episodes saw the deaths of Mulder’s father and Scully’s sister. We also found out that Mulder’s father was involved in the projects from the 1950s. It is implied that he chose Mulder’s sister as an abductee. 

I did not enjoy the spiritual visits Mulder had in this few episodes as they felt very clichéd. Plus, they did not look very good. They reminded us all that this was a 90s show.

The conspiracy felt so gigantic in this episode, but there were some small victories, such as Skinner telling CSM to “pucker up and kiss my ass.” The return and subsequent attempted killing of Krycek was very good too.

One has to feel for the families of Mulder and Scully as they are constantly in the line of fire or into the troubles up to their ears.

There was also a scene that got downplayed here, but leads to big things. It was when Scully discovered the chip in her neck. If I remember correctly, the removal of that chip is what triggered Scully’s bout with cancer.

Lots of great stuff here as the X-Files heads into their third season.

 

Musical Shorts

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Because I felt as if I was cheating with the musical this morning (Ray really was not a musical), I decided to watch some short movies on YouTube to cover the bases. I did three of them.

“Taylor Swift-All Too Well: The Short Film” (2021)

“Incest! The Musical” (2011)

“Zombie Musical” (2011)

The Taylor Swift short was basically a song with a story being told over top of it. It is a music video. However, Sadie Sink did appear in the video as one of the main characters. I did enjoy the song, but, again, it most likely not a musical. The story of this collapsing relationship was sad and engaging. Sadie Sink is an excellent young actor.

Incest! The Musical was really fun, which I know it is an odd thing to say. A brother and a sister sing about their attraction for one another and how they don’t care what the world says about their relationship. This has some really clever lyrics on the songs satirizing a subject that everybody considers queesy.

Then, in 2011, in the middle of the zombie craze, Zombie Musical appeared. Basically the same idea that you have seen all over the place with zombie shows/movies, but with songs.  This short was remade into the film “Anna and the Apocalypse,” which was fun and I watched during the first DailyView.

All three were enjoyable in their own way.

Ray (2004)

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Okay, so today I am cheating.

I watched Ray, the biopic of Ray Charles, starring Jamie Foxx, which lead to Foxx winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, it absolutely falls into the category that I spoke about at the beginning of the Genre-ary DailyView. It is not a musical. 

It did have musical listed on the summary for the movie, but it is one of those movies that has music in it, is even about music, but is not a musical. I did say at the beginning of this month that I might not follow that rule as I was going through it and so I have broken it.

According to IMDB, “The story of Ray Charles (played by Jamie Foxx), music legend. Told in his adult life with flashbacks to his youth we see his humble origins in Florida, his turbulent childhood, which included losing his brother and then his sight, his rise as pianist in a touring band, him writing his own songs and running his own band, and then stardom. Also includes his addiction to drugs and its affect on his working life and family life.“

Jamie Foxx is sensational as the legendary performer. He seemingly brought back to life the larger than life character of Ray Charles Robinson, better known to the world as just Ray Charles. 

The biopic sections of this movie are the best parts. Watching Foxx develop Ray through his relationships, his struggle to find the right sound, his drug habit and other problems was the standout of this film.

The music was used well, but I could have used more of it. It seemed to only give a flavor of the songs in the film. Again, another reason why I would not consider this a musical, necessarily.

I thought the weakest part of the movie were the daydreams/delusions that Ray would have flashing back to the traumatic event of his brother’s death. The appearance of water in his suitcase or on the floor were too cartoony for what the movie was trying to go for. This felt way too artsy for the story. The straight up flashbacks were considerably more powerful and more effective than that.

I do appreciate that the film did not shy away from some of the negative aspects of his life. Many of these types of musical biopics leave out major issues in favor of a more positive spin. We see Ray Charles and his drug addiction, which led to his arrest, and his extra-marital affairs, one which even gave him a son.

Along with Jamie Foxx, the strong cast included Regina King, Kerry Washington, Clifton Powell, Sharon Warren, Richard Schiff, Larenz Tate, Terrence Howard, Wendell Pierce, Bokeem Woodbine, and even Moonlighting’s Herbert Viola, Curtis Armstrong, himself. I was able to get past my dislike of that actor because of his Moonlighting role. Being fair, he did a solid job here.

This was a movie with a lot of good and some areas where I would have liked something different. Jamie Foxx is tremendous as are the rest of the cast (shout out to Kerry Washington for her role as Charles’s wife, Bee). Ray is a touch long and, not really a musical, but it is a solid film overall.

Fargo S5 E10

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Spoilers

“Bisquik”

I loved the final scene of this season! I did not know that I needed it so much. 

The finale of the tremendous season was so very satisfying even though it was nowhere like I expected it to be. 

The whole standoff was done in like ten minutes. We did not get the final showdown between Roy and Dorothy. We did have a showdown, but it was not final nor was it as epic as I thought it was going to be.

Most of this episode would be considered falling action in the plot map. Basically, they wrapped up the conflict quickly and then they showed us where everyone woundup.

RIP to Deputy Witt Farr. I was yelling at the screen for him to shoot Roy in the head as he held the renegade sheriff at gun point. When Roy would not drop the knife he was holding, I was getting nervous and I was right to be nervous as Roy killed Witt with that knife. It was a shocking death that I did not expect and Dorothy’s reaction after was one of deep pain.

The episode was filled with great final interactions including Dorothy shooting Roy in the gut, Dorothy being so sweet to Gator, Dorothy reuniting with Wayne and Scotty, Dorothy’s hug with Lorraine, and Lorraine’s meeting with Roy in prison. But everything was building to the scene that I had no idea that I really needed.

Dorothy and Ole Munch… aka Oola Moonk. 

In a season of so much violence and anger, this soft and kind scene between the man and the tiger was so beautiful. Moonk was clearly thrown off his game by the manner of Dorothy and her family. When Wayne handed him an orange pop, the look on Moonk’s face was everything. The Sin-eater kept speaking to the past and the code, but Dorothy was having none of it. It was halfway to dinner and a school night so Dorothy said either wash your hands and help or do this another time.

The switch of scene to Moonk washing his hands was perfect.

And the look on his face after taking a bite of the biscuit ‘made with love’ was a perfect punctuation to the season. What a beautiful image. It truly filled my soul with hope and kindness. 

What a wonderful season finale. Honestly, I loved this and it was so unexpected that it caught me totally off-guard. 

EYG Comic Cavalcade #78

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January 20, 2024

Welcome to EYG Comic Cavalcade #78. 

I got a whole bunch of books from eBay this week. The eBay books I pick up are usually those odd ball books that you may not find anywhere else. In fact, I picked up three different series of The Tick. One was The Tick Color #1-4. Then Tick and Arthur #1-6 and finally The Tick: Big Blue Destiny #1-5. I do love the Tick and my Tick collection is sparse at best. 

After that, I was able to pick up Howard the Duck Vol. 3 #2, 3,and 4. Number one is actually on the way separately as this seemed as if the conditions were better than the one set on eBay that had all of the volume 3 in it. I think there was also a variant cover coming with that #1. When that arrives, I do believe that I have all of the Howard the Duck volumes in my collection, leaving only those stranger ones.

Not from eBay directly, via Todd actually, is Ice Cream Man #20. I had a second printing of this already, but this is the Local Comic Shop Day edition of the book. This was very much like the Swan Song #6 from last week and it was a ton of fun and yet still quite creepy.

New books this week:

Invincible Iron Man #14. ”Here Be Mandarin Rings“ Written by Gerry Duggan and art by guest artist Andrea Di Vito. Kael Ngu was the cover artist. Tony Stark and Emma Frost get busy!!! Then Ironheart and Forge face dangers in space.

The Colonized: Zombies vs. Aliens. Written by Chris Ryall and drawn by Drew Moss. Cover art was by Fran Cavil. This was a lot of fun. Aliens arrive on earth, trying to collect specimens. Unfortunately, their ray brought the dead back, reanimating them into zombies. 

Deviant #3. Written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Joshua Hixson. Who knew an axe to the face might not be a final blow? This story of serial killers and those investigating it has been thrilling so far.

Jackpot #1. Written by Celeste Bronfman and art by Joey Vazquez with Eric Gapstur. Pablo Villalobos & Romulo Fajardo Jr. did the cover art. Mary Jane Watson in her new Jackpot identity joins in on the Gang War storyline running through the Spidey and street level books. I’m still not sold on MJ as a superhero, but this was enjoyable enough.

Cobra Commander #1. Written by Joshua Williamson and art by Andrea Milana. One of the biggest surprises of the week, I really enjoyed this first issue starring Cobra’s head cheese. And the surprise captive that Cobra Commander has is worth the price of the book alone.

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #4. Written by Brian Buccellato and art by Christian Duce and Tom Derenick. Drew Johnson and Romulo Fajardo Jr. did the cover art. We head to Atlantis for some watery battles and Aquaman is able to unleash the Kraken!

Avengers: Twilight #1. ”The Best of Us” Written by Chip Zdarsky and art by Daniel Acuna. Alex Ross and Daniel Acuna did the cover art. This was another surprise of the week as I typically do not love these potential future stories very much, but I was totally engaged with this one. Sad Spider-Man scene though.

Fantastic Four #16. ”Exalt Imagination“ Written by Ryan North and art by Francesco Mortarino. Cover art this week is the EYG Cover of the Week and it is by EYG Hall of Famer Alex Ross. Franklin and Valeria have to go to school in the FF’s new home of Arizona and they try to do something amazing for their science report. It might have backfired on them. Fun issue with these characters who have been gone for awhile. 

Daredevil #5. ”Introductory Rites” Part Five. Written by Saladin Ahmed and drawn by Farid Karami. Cover art by John Romita Jr, Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz. Father Matt and She-Hulk are out on the town and are eating food everywhere. Something is going on with Jen Walters and it’s going to take Father Matt to figure it out.

Amazing Spider-Man #42. Written by Zeb Wells and penciled by John Romita Jr. Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz did the cover art. Beetle and Madame Masque have a stare down as the Gang War continues. Then. sides are forming for the big thrown down. 

Cable #1. ”United We Fall“. Written by Fabian Nicieza and penciled by Scot Eaton. Whilce Portacio & Alex Sinclair did the cover art. Okay, I tried to get into this, but honestly Cable has never been a personal favorite of mine and this book was meh for me. 

Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 #3. ”Beware… The Werewolf By Night of 2099“ Written by Steve Orlando and art by Jason Muhr. This was the Legacy issue #100 for Miguel as he has to deal with a Werewolf from 2099.

The Enfield Gang Massacre #6. ”Chapter Six: An Occurrence.” Written by Chris Condon and artwork by Jacob Phillips. This limited series comes to a close with a great sequence involving Enfield and a hangman’s noose. It was a sequence right out of an old Twilight Zone episode and it was well done.   

Other books read this week: Phantom Road #8, Superman: Lost #10, White Widow #3, Capwolf and the Howling Commandos #4, X-Men #30, Black Panther #8, Kill Your Darlings #5, and Guardians of the Galaxy #10. 

The Beekeeper

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In 2023, Jason Statham starred in two of the top three worst movies on my Worst Movie list. He is starting off 2024 better than that.

Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is a beekeeper who has rented some space from Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) for his hives. When Eloise gets scammed out of all her money, including 2 million dollars from a charity that she ran, she kills herself. This set off Clay, who turned out to be a retired member of a special governmental group called the Beekeepers, and he went on a killing spree of everyone involved in the scam.

This was absolutely a poor-man’s John Wick. There is even the scene where the cocky young guy is told by a father-figure that he has messed up and is going to be killed and that there is nothing they can do about it. This felt right out of John Wick’s first film. 

The cocky young guy behind the scam scheme is Josh Hutcherson and he does a decent job of being slimy as could be. The ‘father-figure’ was a former CIA director played by Jeremy Irons. Both of these two did a great job as their characters, even if there is not much to them. This is a good example of good actors elevating parts that might not be very deep.

However, Hutcherson’s character’s eventual identity is very cringeworthy and is a big part of the finale of this movie that was so out there that it brought the film down.

The first part of the film was actually pretty decent and had a lot of fun, cheesy action with Jason Statham just killing fools. The film does go over the edge several times in the third act, stretching credibility to a thin. thin string.

There are two FBI agents that the film follows for some reason. Emma Raver-Lampman played Agent Veronica Parker, the daughter of Phylicia Rashad’s character but you could hardly guess that considering how detached she was most of the film. That plot point should have been eliminated or expanded upon instead of what was done. 

And as I have hinted at, the finale is just so improbably that, even in this type of a film, it makes you roll your eyes. This was very much like those crazy action movies of the 1990s. If that is what you are looking for, The Beekeeper is enough fun to get by, even if there are better movies that feature revenge killing. There were some decent kills in the first part of the film that were satisfying. There was one that was shown in the trailer that I wish would have been kept for the film because it would have been epic if I did not know it was coming.

Some of the dialogue of this movie was silly, with so many bee-puns that you just have to shake your head. 

The Beekeeper is dumb fun and a Jason Statham fan would enjoy this a lot. The dumb stuff never threatened to overwhelm the film and there was enough fun parts to make this watchable.

3.1 stars

I.S.S.

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I.S.S. stands for the International Space Station, and this is a science fiction movie set aboard the Space Station. It was a cooperative venture between the United States and Russia. 

Everything seemed to be going well until something happened on the earth. They could see the explosions from the space station. Then the Americans received a message from earth to take control of the I.S.S. using whatever means necessary.

I found most of the first hour fairly dull. I did not think most of these characters were developed and I did not have any connection to any of these people.

Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr, Maria Mashkova, Costa Ronin and Pilou Asbæk are the actors in the film and they are all fine, though not great in any stretch of imagination.

The effects of the film were pretty decent. The scenes of the explosions on earth were the coolest part. The use of the floating/lack of gravity was a cool effect too.

Other than that, I did not like much about this film.

2.5 stars