Author Archives: Doc

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #49

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Spoilers

“Part 2”

Interestingly, Billy Joel: And So It Goes Part 1 ended with a cliffhanger of sorts. Billy Joel had just had a motorcycle wreck and the doc made us think this was a huge event to Billy Joel.

Then, the second part of the doc started and the motorcycle accident was brushed aside with a mention about how his hand did not bend like it used to. That was it.

Even with that little sideline, I thought I enjoyed Part Two more than I did Part One. There were more about this that I did not know. There were more personal information than just details about the songs and why he wrote it.

The doc interviewed Christie Brinkley, famously Joel’s second wife, who was a huge inspiration with a lot of the hits of the 1980s. Hearing about the marriage and eventual divorce was very interesting.

It also spoke about the time when Billy was not active. There was a large stretch of time when he wasn’t making anything new and hearing about that time was fascinating.

The doc has a ton of individuals speaking about Billy Joel. We saw Paul McCartney, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Pink, Garth Brooks, Nas, and Jackson Browne.

This was a really strong doc, even if it was too long. It was comprehensive and covered most of his biggest hits. This was amazing.

Daily Countdown: TV Show Themes #83

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#83

One Day at a Time

Title: “This is It”

Composed: Jeff and Nancy Barry

Performed: Polly Cutter

One Day at a Time is another of those catchy, 70s/80s themes that sticks in your head after you see it. I watched One Day at a Time, but I did not love it. It was fine. The theme sticks with me more than the show did.

The Pitt S1 E11, E12, E13

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Spoilers

“5:00 PM”

“6:00 PM”

“7:00 PM”

Dr. Robby kept saying in episode 11 that there was only two hours left in the shift, but I knew there were still multiple hours of episodes remaining. I did not know what was going to happen.

And then all hell broke loose.

Some of the most unbelievably intense, stressful stretches of television that I have ever seen. The whole active shooter storyline came back around and slammed everyone at the ER in one massive blast.

I get the feeling that David, the boy who had the hit list back at the beginning of the day was not the culprit of this shooting. It may seem a bit contrived, but I believe it is all coincidence. When David strolled back to the hospital to pick up his mom, he did not seem like someone who just shot dozens of people.

Either way, this series of episodes was amazing, in the most difficult and painstakingly horrendous ways possible.

Who would have thought that the high pressure baby delivery in episode 11, with Dr. Collins working it after suffering her own miscarriage, would be the low stress scene of these three episodes. That whole baby thing was just anxiety-filled and I was begging the screen to save the baby.

Then, it went crazy.

Watching the hospital prepare for the mass shooting before the victims arrived was fascinating. I wonder if that is the way most/all hospitals respond to an emergency like that? They knew what had to happen and they turned their ER into a MASH unit. I have never quite seen anything like it.

Then, Robby cracking at the end of episode 13 brought one more scene for Noah Wylie’s Emmy roll, with all the weight of the deaths of the day, compounded by this horrible triage situation, and trying to explain to his step-son (of sorts) how he could not save the girlfriend.

I can’t imagine what would be going through the minds of those doctors and interns who were having their first day on the job before everything went to crap. They all were having their moments during the chaos.

The first season is down to just two episodes remaining, which does not seem to be enough to manage everything that the show has set up. This makes me feel that there will be plenty of things dangling at the end of the season, when this day finally comes to a close.

Fallout S2 E2

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Spoilers

“The Golden Rule”

I got around to episode two of Fallout tonight.

We got back to the Brotherhood of Steel, while Maximus (Aaron Moten) had some major problems, from both inside himself and outside, where he must fight for his life.

Hey, there is Kumail Nanjiani strolling into the Brotherhood at the end, after Maximus killed his opponent. I will be curious to see where he takes us.

The Ghoul and Lucy are distracted on their way to Vegas. They have to fight some kind of scorpion/facehugger type monster. The Ghoul is stung and paralyzed, but Lucy gave her final injection to the human that they found here. She told him she would come back. I’m not sure that is the case since the human that Lucy saved is sketchy as can be.

It was fun seeing Hank blow up mice and then take the next step and start to blow up humans. Science experiments require that old saying, “if you first do not succeed, try, try again.” Truly a creepy sentiment considering the situation.

This episode was kind of slow for me, but there were some high points.

2025 EYG Year in Review: More TV

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We have given the best shows in each of the categories (Drama, Comedy, Genre, Animation). Now let’s get a little more specific.

Best Actor Drama: Sterling K. Brown (Paradise). Runners-Up: Stephen Graham (Adolescence), Noah Wylie (The Pitt), Michael C. Hall (Dexter: Resurrection), Jeremy Allen White (The Bear), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game 3), Josh Holloway (Duster)

Best Actress Drama: Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus). Runners-Up: Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets), Christina Ricci (Yellowjackets), Julianne Nicholson (Paradise)

Best Supporting Actor Drama: Owen Cooper (Adolescence). Runners-Up: Gerran Howell (The Pitt), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear), Elijah Wood (Yellowjackets), Peter Dinklage (Dexter: Resurrection), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus).

Best Supporting Actress Drama: Uma Thurman (Dexter: Resurrection). Runners-Up: Tracy Ifeacho (The Pitt), Katherine LaNasa (The Pitt), Erin Doherty (Adolescence), Jamie Lee Curtis (The Bear), Parker Posey (The White Lotus).

Best Actor Comedy: Seth Rogen (The Studio). Runners-Up: Steve Martin (Only Murders in the Building), Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building), Owen Wilson (Stick).

Best Actress Comedy: Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building). Runners-Up: Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face).

Best Supporting Actor Comedy: Marc Meron (Stick). Runners-Up: Christoph Waltz (Only Murders in the Building), Ike Barinholtz (The Studio), Bryan Cranston (The Studio), Teddy Coluca (Only Murders in the Building), Peter Dager (Stick).

Best Supporting Actress Comedy: Meryl Streep (Only Murders in the Building). Runners-Up: Kathryn Hahn (The Studio), Patti Harrison (Poker Face), Renee Zellweger (Only Murders in the Building), Zoe Kravitz (The Studio).

Best Actor Genre: Gabriel Luna (Andor). Runners-Up: Charlie Cox (Daredevil: Born Again), John Cena (Peacemaker), Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who), Alexander Skarsgård (Murderbot), Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil: Born Again).

Best Actress Genre: Jenna Ortega (Wednesday). Runners-Up: Rebecca Ferguson (Silo), Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us), Dominique Thorne (Ironheart), Jennifer Holland (Peacemaker), Jaz Sinclair (Gen V), Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things 5).

Best Supporting Actor Genre: Bill Skarsgård (IT: Welcome to Derry). Runners-Up: David Harbour (Stranger Things 5), Tim Robbins (Silo), Stellan Skarsgård (Andor), Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), David Dastmalchian (Murderbot), Anthony Ramos (Ironheart), Steve Agee (Peacemaker), Arian S. Cartaya (IT: Welcome to Derry).

Best Supporting Actress Genre: Danielle Brooks (Peacemaker). Runners-Up: Sadie Sink (Stranger Things 5), Matilda Lawler (IT: Welcome to Derry), Genevieve O’Reilly (Andor), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Lyric Ross (Ironheart).

Best New Theme: IT: Welcome to Derry.

Best Makeup: Stranger Things 5. Runners-Up: Fallout, IT: Welcome to Derry, Gen V, Alien: Earth, Wednesday.

Best Animated Show: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

Best Animated Show Voice Actor: Christian Borle (Hazbin Hotel). Runners-Up: Erika Henningsen (Hazbin Hotel), Colman Domingo (Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), Jeremy Jordan (Hazbin Hotel), Will Forte (Win or Lose), Hudson Thames (Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)

Best TV Show Cameo: Sacha Baron Cohan (Ironheart). Runners-Up: Nicholas Hoult (Peacemaker), Rob Reiner (The Bear), Olivia Colman (The Bear), Keegan-Michael Key (Only Murders in the Building), Simon Helberg (Poker Face), John Cena (Pluribus), Martin Scorsese (The Studio), Ron Howard (The Studio), Ice Cube (The Studio).

Best Season Finale: IT: Welcome to Derry.

2025 Year in Review: Movie Music

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Music is a very important aspect of the movie. EYG already gave out Best Movie Musical, which was Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. We have several categories for this post, starting out with Best Original Song.

Best Original Song -2025 Movies

Top Four

#4. “Golden” (K-Pop Demon Hunters)

#3. The Girl in the Bubble (Wicked: For Good)

#2. “Let’s Just Rock Again” (Spinal Tap II: The End Continues)

#1. “I Lied to You” (Sinners)

Best Use of Music in Movie.

This may not necessarily be a musical. This might be a film about music or a film where the soundtrack is perfectly used.

Some of the films that were runners-up: Superman, K-Pop Demon Hunters, F1: The Movie, The Life of Chuck, Sinners, The Ballad of Wallis Island.

Winner:

Song Sung Blue

The true story of Lightning & Thunder, a tribute band to Neil Diamond used the music of Neil Diamond (as well as a few other popular artists) to tell the story beautifully.

Best Score/Soundtrack

Top 5

#5. Train Dreams – Bryce Dessner

#4. Frankenstein – Alexandre Desplat

#3. Wicked: For Good – John Powell/Stephen Schwartz

#2. Tron: Ares – Nine Inch Nails

#1. Sinners – Ludwig Goransson

Christy

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Christy is a biopic of female boxer Christy Martin’s rise in the world of women boxing and her subsequent abusive relationship with her coach/husband James Martin. This is a film that I rented off Fandango at Home. It was one of the biggest flops of the year at the box office, which is truly a shame because the movie is tremendous.

I thought both Sydney Sweeney, who played Christy, and Ben Foster, who played James, did spectacular jobs. Sydney Sweeney was practically unrecognizable and, had I not known this was her in the lead role, I never would have guessed it.

Christy followed its titular character through her discovery when she won a tough person contest. She was brought into a gym and she showed off her skills at punching to James Martin. He began training her and prepared her to lead the way in the world of female boxing.

Christy had a relationship with another woman, which was frowned upon by her mother Joyce (Merritt Wever). The family sent Christy away to train with James and to control her. James immediately began to show his attempts to control Christy through manipulation. He pushed himself into a relationship with her and was able to get her to agree to marry him.

That was a major mistake. He showed himself to be not only controlling, but also abusive, as he hit her and strangled her during their marriage. While this was going on, he was skimming from the money earned by Christy from her fights. He even went as far as to say that if she ever left him, he would kill her.

It is a fascinating tale as a female boxer, who was one of the first and most dominate female boxers in the sport, would have troubles with an abusive husband. From the outside, you would think that she could take care of herself, but her boxing was not able to prevent his violence.

The third act events were shocking and brutal. I came into it without any knowledge of the life of Christy Martin and, if you can, I would recommend you do the same thing. It was a tough story.

This is a movie that should have done better at the box office. It did not deserve the audiences to desert it as they did. Hopefully, this will find an audience on streaming because this is an important story for people to see.

4 stars

2025 EYG Year in Review: In Memoriam Part 4

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Part Four of 2025 In Memoriam. Hope I do not have to do a Part 5.

Rob Reiner

Anthony Geary

Diane Keaton

Richard Chamberlain

Gil Gerard

Mick Abrahams

Peter David

Alf Clausen

Bill Mercer

Buster Poindexter

Dave Parker

Devin Harjes

George Wendt

James Lowell

Kevyn Major Howard

Joshua Blackledge

Jimmy Cliff

Phil Robertson

Adam the Woo

Mick Ralphs

Rick Hurst

Kenneth Colley

Kenneth Washington

Ryne Sandberg

Sally Kirkland

Valerie Mahaffey

Emman Atienza

Isabelle Tate

Steve Regal

Bobby Sherman

David Kaff

Eileen Fulton

Shigetoshi Kotari

Rick Davies

Rudi Johnson

Perry Bamonte

Young Bleed

Lynn Hamilton

Anne Burrell

Joe Don Baker

Raul Malo

Greg Biffle

James Ransone

Lulu Roman

Wink Martindale

Chris Jasper

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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December 27

So we have come down to the final Comic Covers of the year. Of course, these are the lame duck ones, since none of these will go into the vote for Best Comic Cover artist of the Year. We have already given the medals for that, with Mark Spears winning the 2025 Award.

Also Rans: American Caper #2, Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4, Gray Lady #1, The Will of Doom #1, The Lion King #2, and Cloak or Dagger #3,

Bronze Medalist

Hello Darkness #17

Variant Cover B

Cover art by Jenny Frison

A Jenny Frison cover always awesome, and this one is just so with that eyeball lollipop. I love the red in the background as it matches her eyes.

Silver Medalist

No Man’s Land #4

Cover art by Szymon Kudranski

This is actually the first of the four No Man’s Land covers that did not end up with a Gold Medal. It is still beautiful with the snow white on the cover and the blood splatter in the middle. Kudranski wound up with the Silver Medal for the Cover Artist of the Year.

Gold Medalist

DC KO: Red Hood vs. The Joker #1

Variant Cover C

Cover art by Guillem March

This variant cover of the DC KO fight books jumped off the stand as I was looking at the DC books. The veiny arm of the Joker holding that crowbar, which means so much to Jason Todd. It is a stunning piece of art and a fine, final gold medal cover for 2025.

Next week will start the new year’s Comic Cover Artist competition fresh for 2026.

Song Sung Blue

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I like Neil Diamond. I was never a huge fan, though. At first, I thought this was going to be a biopic about Neil Diamond, however, it was not. It was about a Neil Diamond tribute act called Lightning and Thunder.

According to IMDB, “Lightning and Thunder, a Milwaukee husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act, experience soaring success and devastating heartbreak in their musical journey together.“

Hugh Jackman played Mike, aka Lightning, and Kate Hudson played Claire, aka Thunder. They do a spectacular job in these roles. I believe they do all their own singing and this movie does a tremendous job of using music to create an amazing tone for the film.

I was so into this movie. It had me emotional throughout as the story progressed. I was surprised how impacted I felt with everything that was going down.

This was a true story, but I am not sure how much of the drama that happened actually happened. It was an extremely powerful story and the performances were wonderful.

I don’t want to go into any specifics to avoid spoilers, but there are some shocking moments throughout.

Greta performances, great music, great storyline. I really loved this movie which took me on an emotional journey that I did not expect to go on. Song Sung Blue was fabulous.

4.8 stars

Daily Countdown: TV Show Themes #84

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#84

Who’s the Boss

Season one

Season three

Season 8

Title: “Brand New Life”

Composed: Larry Carlton and Robert Kraft.

Lyrics: Martin Cohan and Blake Hunter, the show’s creators.

Performed: Larry Weiss: Seasons 1–2; Steve Wariner: Seasons 3–6; Jonathan Wolff: Season 6–8

Musicians: Notable features included Larry Carlton on guitar and Jeff Porcaro on drums. 

The ABC sitcom, Who’s the Boss, had one of those catchy themes that stuck in your head after you hear it. I enjoyed the show and the theme helped with it.

2025 EYG Year in Review: The EYG Stan Lee Movie Cameo Award

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The EYG Stan Lee Movie Cameo Award

Previous winners:  Stan Lee (Big Hero 6*, Deadpool, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse* ), John Cena (Daddy’s Home), Chris Evans (Thor: The Dark World, Free Guy, Deadpool & Wolverine), Sigourney Weaver (Cabin in the Woods), Hugh Jackman (X-Men: First Class), Yoda (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Harrison Ford (Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker), Rudy Giuliani (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Val Kilmer (Top Gun: Maverick), Rhea Perlman (Barbie)

SPOILERS

I am adding a spoiler tag to this award because the winner of The EYG Stan Lee Movie Cameo of the Year Award came from a movie that I just saw and has not been out for a long time. So if you are wanting to see this certain movie and you do not want this cameo spoiled, please skip this award for the moment.

Stan Lee was the master of the cameo. He is a three time winner of this award and, of course, had it named after him. A cameo can be a great thing. It can be a sudden surprise, something that you couldn’t believe. It could be something that made the scene perfect. It could be an amazing Easter egg. It could be an inside joke that only some of the audience may get. Or it could be the appearance of a celeb or a character that shows how much respect or love they have for the content in which they are appearing.

I actually was not anxious to do this award, despite it being one of my favorites and one of the oldest we had. The reason is I do not have a great deal of cameos in movies this year. There are actually several big ones in TV (which we’ll give out with the More TV Awards later this weekend), but the movies were light for me.

Naked Gun had a couple of good ones. Dave Bautista appeared in a fun joke, replacing Liam Neeson for a bit of the film. Weird Al was in that film too. I considered giving it to Al because he has been in so many of the Naked Gun films over the year. Bradley Cooper appeared in Superman as Jor-El, which was unexpected. John Cena’s Peacemaker was also in Superman. Sarah Michelle Geller appeared in the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, but that film was such a mess that I wouldn’t want to give this award for that. Then there was William Zabka at the very end of the Karate Kid Legends, which was a fun shout out to Cobra Kai.

None of these were very impactful overall. I take nothing away from any of them, but I am not sure these were going to deserve this award, in the name of Stan Lee.

Then I saw Anaconda today.

Again, SPOILERS ahead. If you do not want to be spoiled by this… I’ll give you a countdown.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

The EYG Stan Lee Cameo Award goes to…

Ice Cube as himself (Anaconda)

Star of the 1997 film Anaconda, Ice Cube makes a shocking return to the screen in 2025’s Anaconda. In the film, Jack Black and Paul Rudd are filming a reimaging of the film Anaconda, and they make plenty of references to the original film. Ice Cube pulls a Deus ex machina near the end of the film to show up and save the guys from certain death. Ice Cube strolls in as bad ass as they come. J-Lo makes an appearance later in a post credit scene, but Ice Cube gets this nod for being indispensable to the story itself.

I am very pleased for Ice Cube here after the disaster that was War of the Worlds.

The Housemaid

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When I first saw a trailer for this movie, I thought to myself, “This is like the Hand that Rocked the Cradle.” I said this to a friend of mine and she said that it was not anything like that. She mentioned that it was originally in a novel by Freida McFadden, which I did not know. I decided that I would give this a chance. My friend was right, this was not in that subgenre of horror film where the babysitter tries to do crazy things for reasons.

According to IMDB, “A struggling young woman is relieved by the chance for a fresh start as a maid for a wealthy couple. Soon, she discovers that the family’s secrets are far more dangerous than her own.”

This one has its ups and downs for me. I am not sure how I feel about it. I think the three main cast members, Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, do a fantastic job with what the story asks of them. They have great chemistry with each other and are very believable in everything that they do.

One of my problems though is I hate it when people do stupid things in a thriller. There are several things that Sweeney’s character Millie does that makes me want to yell at the screen. Couldn’t she see this coming? Maybe at first, but as the film moved on, why are you not recognizing what is going on? I hate it when the characters do really stupid things.

The end of the movie was fun, but I did see it coming. There was something that, when mentioned in the beginning of the film, I knew was going to come back around as a major piece later in the film, and sure enough, I was right.

There was also a section near the beginning of the third act of the film where suddenly we were doing a ton of exposition, explaining what had gone down. I thought this was a weak point of the movie.

The Housemaid feels like Hollywood camp, but in a glorious way. It feels as if everyone involved understands the assignment in this story and are ready to give it their all. There are weaknesses in the film, but I think I came out of it more positive than negative.

3 stars

Anaconda

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Back in 1997, a horror film about a giant snake appeared. Anaconda, starring Ice Cube, J-Lo, and Jon Voight, was a terrible movie, but it survived the years and became an iconic cult classic film. In 2025, we now got a meta-sequel to the film starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd which debuted this weekend.

According to IMDB, “Four childhood friends are going through a midlife crisis so they decide to remake their favorite horror movie from the 1990s in the Amazon Forest When a real giant anaconda shows up, they get more than what they bargain for and their comically chaotic movie making turns into a life-or-death situation. The movie that they’re dying to remake? It might just kill them, literally.“

I heard some negative things about the new film before I went into it, which made me nervous because I had thought the trailers looked good and I was excited to see it. The negative comments made me feel much more tentative about the movie.

I can understand why some people might not have been a fan of this, but I enjoyed it a lot. I found this funny, the characters likable and entertaining, and the meta qualities of the film worked so well.

I thought there was a lot of clever writing involved in this movie. The humor is solid. There were a couple of jokes that I usually do not like, but, for me, even those worked well.

No spoiler here, but there was a great cameo in the film too.

There are some negatives to the film too though. I do think it started fairly slowly and the film really took off when the characters get on their boat. I do think that I wish the trailer hadn’t spoiled some of the best laughs in the film because I think it would have been so much better.

I am happy that I liked this movie more than what some were saying. I found it funny and engaging. I do enjoy a film with as many meta jokes and Anaconda falls right into that.

3.8 stars