Two good episodes of The X-Files followed one of the best one.
Both were dealing with victims who were seeing things, whether it was because of a pesticide being secretly sprayed on a small town or because of a secret sleep experiment to create soldiers who never slept.
We meet a couple of important characters to the X-Files mythology. First, there was a meeting between Mulder and his new ‘friend’ inside the FBI, X. We get to see what X looks like, though we know very little about him. And as we saw at the end of the second episode, Cigarette Smoking Man does not know who X is at this point either.
The second character is FBI Agent Alex Krycek. He is introduced as another agent who partnered up with Mulder and said that he wanted to believe. He is shown as a potential new ally, but we learn that he is one of CSM’s flunkies.
The Lone Gunmen make their return in Blood, to spew some of their paranoid ideas. They are in a short moment but they were memorable.
Apollo 15 landed on the moon in search of ice. A last minute change of landing location placed the crew in jeopardy, but lead to a huge success.
Molly Cobb became the first American woman to step on the moon. Meanwhile, her husband Wayne is struggling through the anxiety of the uncertainty of not knowing what might happen to Molly. He confessed to having a terrible dream of Molly dying in a pit. It was something that he then painted, trying to get the anxiety out.
Meanwhile, Molly and Ed were preparing to lower her into Shackleton Crater to search for ice. The amount of oxygen available has been depleting, making everything very nervous.
I kept waiting for something horrible to happen to Molly. With all the dreams and paintings about her death, I was scared that she was not long for the show.
For All Mankind did a great job of creating that tension in the situation and kept me off balance as a viewer.
The end of the episode saw Apollo 15 take off from the surface of the moon and then we got a two year time jump.
This is probably not for hardcore Damian Wayne fans.
If you can get past the fact that Damian Wayne, who is typically a very dark and violent character, is smoothed into a family friendly cartoon version of the character, then you will enjoy this hectic, engaging and fun-filled animated romp. If taking the darkness out of the story bothers you, well, skip this one.
I am not offended by the edginess removed from the Bat-Family, so I was able to watch and enjoy the Merry Little Batman special on Amazon Prime.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “This Christmas, Damian Wayne wants to be a superhero like his dad–the one and only Batman. When Damian is left home alone while Batman takes on Gotham’s worst supervillains on Christmas Eve, he stumbles upon a villainous plot to steal Christmas and leaps at the chance to save the day.”
Luke Wilson voiced Bruce Wayne/Batman in this movie, which was an interesting choice. It definitely revealed the changes of the character since fatherhood took over. Yonus Kibreab voiced Damian and James Cromwell was Alfred Pennyworth.
Several iconic Batman villains make their appearances too, including Joker (David Hornsby), Penguin (Brian George), Poison Ivy (Therese McLaughlin) and Bane (Chris Sullivan).
Animated in a family friendly way, Merry Little Batman is absolutely directed to a younger audience, but it did not lose the humor or the message to the story. Damian learns a valuable lesson about being a superhero, about sacrifice and about Christmas.
This is a lot of fun and, if you allow yourself to enjoy the film, you will. If your preconceived notions of what Batman or Damian Wayne is supposed to be, then you may get in your own way.
Picket Fences episodes E18 and E19 were kind of a two-parter focusing on euthanasia and the law against the practice.
Jill aided one of her patient’s death by turning up his morpheme. He was dying from cancer and was suffering and in pain. The patient’s family asked Jill to help him die.
This led to Jill being placed on trial. Courtney B. Vance came to town to prosecute her. He wanted to make a message out of her in the town of Rome.
The chunk of the episode featured the trial and an argument over euthanasia. The biggest argument was that the law of euthanasia was irrelevant because it was against the law and Jill admitted to breaking it.
Shockingly enough, Jill was found guilty. The next episode turned out to be the case against the law of euthanasia.
This was very well done and poor Jill is once again potentially facing jail time.
“Saint Zack”
Zack’s hands started bleeding while he was praying at church and looking at the crucifix. The blood made Rev. Henry Novotny think that Zack was a stigmatic.
The episode went into serious questions about religion, especially for Jimmy. Jimmy’s anger ended up with him declaring that Jesus was a fake.
Other students in the school started treating Zack like a saint, including asking him to heal a leukemia patient. Zack also gets hit in the head by a thrown stone.
Adam Wylie does a solid job in this episode, but there was a lot of pretentiousness in the show.
James Cromwell and Marlee Matlin make appearances in this one.
“Upbringings”
James Coburn makes a guest starring appearance as Jimmy’s big time lawyer father who comes to give Jimmy his law practice. Jimmy flips out.
The latest family episode, where the tangential family members come to the Brock family and fight, involves Jimmy and his father’s relationship.
The kids even made a comment at the family table about relatives coming over and leading to fights.
Yes, they had a family dinner scene that leads to major problems. One wonders where Douglas Wambaugh’s wife was every time he comes over to the Brock’s for dinner.
“The Son of Rome”
Violence comes to Rome once again as a teenager attempts to find money for his gambling debts by holding up Father Gary Barrett in his own confessional. The teen ends up shooting Gary with an Uzi.
This was a tough episode. I remember when it originally aired because I never thought that the show would kill off Father Barrett and I expected him to come out of his state. When he did not, it was quite the shock.
It also provided Henry Bone with some real meaty material as his friend, a man who helped him through the suicide of his son, was brain dead. Judge Bone had a terrible blow up on the bench when Barrett’s assaulter came before him.
This was the first time that we ever saw a case be sent to a different court, but clearly Henry was not impartial and had some deep seeded feelings about the situation.
Wambaugh sings a very emotional song at the end at the special spring pageant that Mayor Bey refused to cancel, despite the shock of everyone over the shooting of the priest.
These last two episodes wrapped up season two of Moonlighting. E18 was a typical Moonlighting episode with the twists and funny chase scene. E19 featured Whoopi Goldberg, Judd Nelson and a lot of “Devil With the Blue Dress.”
Both of these episodes included a technique that was used quite a bit during the entire series, and especially in these two: Breaking the Fourth Wall.
Moonlighting became very famous for breaking the fourth wall. It is a technique where the actors speak directly to the camera or act as if they know they are in a TV show. The show had been weaving a few of these nuggets throughout the first couple of seasons.
The thing is, these final two episodes really dove into the concept. During “Funeral for a Door Nail,” there were multiple fourth wall breaks written into the dialogue, including a clever shake of the camera when David asked the audience a question.
Then “Camille” took it to an even greater extreme when they had their chase scene through the backlot of the film company and a weird conclusion that saw everybody putting the props away because it was the final episode of the season and it was time for the summer. They did not even bother to end the storyline with Whoopi Goldberg and Judd Nelson.
While I do love the Breaking of the Fourth Wall, I do think that the writers of the show did take it too far a few times. Every time it happened in “Funeral for a Door Nail,” I laughed and enjoyed it, it felt as if they were overdoing the technique. And the end of “Camille” was just way too much, turning the episode into a strange slapstick adventure with everything including Billy Barty.
The use of the fourth wall break became something that the series became over reliant on. I remember loving every time it would happen when I watched the show on ABC, but now, on my rewatch, it does feel as if it has been over used. Less is more, in this case. The real reason Moonlighting was as successful as it became was because of David and Maddie and their relationship, or lack there of. The will-they-won’t-they struggle of these two is what kept bringing the fans back, but it did seem that the writers continued to expand on some of the things that were novel to the show, but secondary. And I believe season three (although it also contains the best episode of Moonlighting ever with “Atomic Shakespeare”) continues down the path of mistakes in choices. I wonder how much the noted feud between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd had to do with it.
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)
Every year, there are talented voice actors who create characters with their voices. In this category, we include animated movies, CGI characters, and even live action characters whose face you never see.
There are always a lot of great choices. Here are the Honorable Mentions…
Honorable Mentions: A couple of actors from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse included a great performance from Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Gwen and Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099. Vin Diesel does a great job as Groot both in Guardians Vol. 3 and I Am Groot animated shorts. The iconic Peter Cullen brought Optimus Prime back to the live action Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. The four young actors, Micah Abbey, Shannon Brown Jr., Nicolas Canter, and Brady Noon in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem were brought together in the studio to do their voice over together. Daveed Diggs appeared as Sebastian in the live action Little Mermaid flick. If I had a basic runner-up, it would be Jack Black in The Super Marion Bros. film.
And the winner: Bradley Cooper (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)
Rocket was the emotional heart of that movie and Bradley Cooper brought his best work from the franchise. Though he did not record the really young Rocket, he did the majority of the character and did the most painful parts. He has been exceptional as the raccoon and he is a big reason why Rocket is a major character in the MCU.
The third Disney + special featuring The Doctor was dropped on the streaming service. We have seen the return of David Tennant as the Doctor. I had not been a viewer of Doctor Who over the years with just a few exceptions here and there. I liked the first special and loved last week’s special and so I was anticipating the next special.
Without spoiling anything, I loved this ending and the resolution was absolutely amazing and changed the mythology of the Doctor for now on. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it has been known that the next Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa was scheduled to appear in this special. How it came about was great.
Neil Patrick Harris is playing the villain of the special and, once again, I do not intend on spoiling what villain since I believe it is an important Doctor Who character (at least I think it was). Harris is always great and I did enjoy his over-the-top performance of that actor.
There were some real emotional moments in the special, especially between Tennant and Catharine Tate. I do believe that there are some other fun faces that reappear from the history of The Doctor’s adventures.
These three specials have made me a fan of this version of the Doctor. There is a Christmas special still on the horizon and I am excited to see it.
This week’s Monarch picked up the pace from last week’s episode that, for me, was relatively disappointing. I found this week’s episode considerably better than last week.
After being released by Monarch, Cate, Kentaro and May head to San Francisco to go to Hiroshi Randa’s San Fran office. Unfortunately, it was in the heart of the location of Godzilla’s rampage on G-Day and the government was patrolling the area shooting looters.
Cate was having terrible flashbacks to the days surrounding G-Day and her PTSD was devastating her. We got flashbacks to her life just before, during and after G-Day. These moments helped carve out an explanation of this character that may have been missing up until this point.
She also told her mother the truth about Hiroshi’s other family in Japan, making an awkward situation even more so.
Shaw was kept at Monarch. He mentioned that he had not told the kids anything, making us feel that something else is going on. There was a question raised to why Shaw was not as old looking as he should have. The character maintained a level of mystery, and I love Kurt Russell being it.
Hayao Miyazaki, classic animation director from Studio Ghibli, who directed such brilliant films as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, has returned to present a new animated film, The Boy and the Heron.
According to IMDB, “A young boy named Mahito, yearning for his mother, ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.”
Above all else, as in most Studio Ghibli films, the animation is stunningly gorgeous. It is like watching moving art. The imagery of the film is breath-taking.
I did not love the story because it did feel a little messy. It did deal with a lot of areas that was tough to follow at times. There were some deep themes throughout the film, but it did not feel as if characters were necessarily consistent across the time. It did feel to be a little long in the tooth for the film, but not bad enough to be dull.
It is a beautiful movie that had some flaws. Miyazaki showed that he still has it despite being in the late 80s age wise.
This is one of the top X-Files episodes of all time, one that I generally refer to as Flukeman. When I saw the whitish arm reach out of the water, I immediately said, “Oh, this is the Flukeman” episode.
Flukeman was one of the creepiest, monsters-of-the-week creatures that the series has ever had. It was also one of the most straightforward resolutions the show had. gotten. That fell into the storyline as a “friend” inside the FBI contacted Mulder and indicated that success of the case was important. Mainly because it needed to show that the X-Files was necessary. This new character would become known as “X” and turned into a sort of replacement for Deep Throat, whose time on the series came to an end at the end of season one.
We get the first, however minor, moment of Skinner seeming to be not the face of corruption at the FBI. When he said to Mulder that everyone has a boss to answer to, we get a glimpse into the fact that Skinner might be more than what he seemed. In hindsight, we know that Skinner is never truly trusted fully, but he does make his way into the ally category eventually.
This was one of the best episodes so far and I even have a Flukeman action figure.
2023saw a bit of a decline in the subgenre of the comic book movie… at least in the eyes of some.
Personally, I enjoyed most of the comic book movies of 2023, and while there were none that were unbelievable, I do not subscribe to the theory of the narrative of the “comic book movie fatigue” that some have been pushing for nearly a decade now. It is not a theory to which I would agree as it just feels like more toxicity than anything else.
So among the films this year, I have a few that I considered for the Christopher Reeve Memorial Comic Book Movie of the Year. Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania fielded a lot of hatred, much more than it deserved. The Flash had some good moments (but not the baby-hospital rescue part), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was one of the best movies of the year.
Previous winners are as follows:
The Christopher Reeve Memorial Comic Book Movie of the Year
Previous Winners: Batman (1989), Dick Tracy (1990), The Rocketeer (1991), Batman Returns (1992), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), The Crow (1994), Batman Forever (1995), The Phantom (1996), Men in Black (1997), Blade (1998), Mystery Men (1999), X-Men (2000), From Hell (2001), Spider-Man (2002), X2: X-Men United (1993), Spider-Man 2 (1994), V for Vendetta (2005), 300 (2006), Superman: Doomsday (2007), The Dark Knight (2008), Watchmen (2009), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Captain America: First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Captain America: Winter Soldier & Guardians of the Galaxy [tie] (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Logan (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Birds of Prey (2020), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
So in 2023, the Christopher Reeve Memorial Comic Book Movie of the Year is…
Winner: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a tremendous conclusion for the James Gunn-led trilogy. The emotional backstory of Rocket informed the whole film and we truly got a chance to see how vital that character was to the overall franchise. There were some beautiful moments in the film, including many of the moments between Rocket and Lyla.
Guardians Vol. 3 was able to blend humor and tragedy together into a wonderfully epic tale.
I was both excited and anxious about the new movie on Peacock + called Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie. I loved the TV show Monk and the character of Adrian Monk, as played by multiple EMMY winner Tony Shalhoub. But the title of the movie implied something that I did not want. A last case? It sounded too final for my tastes. I certainly was not ready for a permanent goodbye.
So the Defective Detective fell right into place as the film started. Adrian Monk was still suffering from his compulsions, trying to make money writing a book to pay for Molly (Caitlin McGee),Trudy’s (Melora Hardin) daughter’s, wedding. However, the book was a failure, and we discovered that Adrian Monk was feeling suicidal.
And, once again, I was fearful of how this movie was starting to go.
With the return of Natalie (Traylor Howard), Randy (Jason Gray Stanford), Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), and Dr. Bell (Hector Elizondo), the show pulled no punches when it came to nostalgia. These actors all slipped easily back into these roles that they spent so many years playing on the TV show Monk. You could feel the connection between them and you were excited to see them.
Still, the key to all of this is Tony Shalhoub, who was perfect as Adrian Monk. He was able to portray both the silliness and depression of the character. He could easily switch from anguish to anxiety at a moments notice. It was as if he had not missed a beat after all of these years.
The story itself was okay at best. I’ve seen better Monk episodes, but this was fine, and the key to this movie was the return of the characters. The film which was very much like the show, a howdidit, much like Columbo episodes. We knew the killer, but Monk was trying to figure out how it happened.
I thought the ending of the movie was just tremendous. I felt as if I was emotionally connecting to the story and came just short of tears filling my eyes.
I really found this Peacock film a pleasure, a treat. These are great characters and it was a welcome return.
I am taking a class for my educational license renewal on podcasts in education. I started it yesterday and one of the assignments was to basically try out a podcast. I was considering the Wolverine one, but then I remembered. The podcast that went along with Image Comics’ series No/One. I saw the ads for it at the back of the comic and I always wanted to give it a try. This gave me the perfect opportunity.
Starring Rachael Leigh Cook and Patton Oswalt, I only had to listen to the first episode for my class. I was hooked. By the end of the night, I had gone through the entire six episodes that are currently available.
I have been loving the No/One comic series. This podcast was a remarkable compendium to that book. Listening to the podcast, I had that background knowledge from the books and so when the podcast would describe something that I remembered from the comic, it was as if I was a special insider.
Rachael Leigh Cook and Patton Oswalt were great in telling the story of the Richard Roe murders and the copycats.
The comic series is ten issues so I assume there will continue to be a podcast episode for wach issue. This was a fun listen.
In the world of the internet, sometimes stories gain a life of its own. Thus, the award called Confirmed… or is it?. This is the former winner.
Confirmed… or is it? Award
Previous Winner: Mephisto is in WandaVision (2021), Fantastic Four has been cast (2022)
I was originally going to give this award to the story that CM Punk, fired from AEW earlier this year, was going to show up in Chicago at Survivor Series and return to the WWE. It sure felt like a ridiculous idea considering the way that Punk had left the WWE almost ten years before.
And then he showed up.
So much for a Confirmed.. or is it? Award for that. It’ll probably show up in the WWE awards later.
That meant I needed a new winner. So … looking back at last year’s I see a nearly repeat potential winner:
Winner: Everyone is cast as Reed Richards.
People have been crazed about the casting of Mister Fantastic in the upcoming Fantastic Four MCU movie. It kicked off as John Krasinski. He was a fan cast and appeared in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Then there was Adam Driver. It sounded as if this was a sure thing. Then, it wasn’t. Then there was Penn Badgley from You. Ryan Gosling was speculated. So was Jake Gyllenhaal. Matt Smith.
The most recent actor signed for Reed Richards unofficially is Pedro Pascal.
I was able to spend this past NEW COMIC BOOK DAY at Comic World as I used a personal day from school. Once again, it was wonderful. I was able to sit at the back table at Comic World and read most of the new books this week. I do love being able to do this.
It also appears that the curse of the number three in independent books is officially over. I have five #3s this week and they were all in my pull box. Mercifully, the long nightmare is finally over!
Books read this week:
Fantastic Four #14. Written by Ryan North and art by Ivan Fiorelli. Alex Ross did the cover art. The Fantastic Four returns to the site of the Baxter Building with the expectation that it would reappear after it was sent into the future. They discovered people (super villains actually) constructing something on the location.
Thunderbolts#1. “Worldstrike” Written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly and art by Geraldo Borges. Terry Dodson did the cover art. A new team of Thunderbolts head out to take on the Red Skull. Included Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter, Val and Red Guardian. I liked the interactions between these characters.
Amazing Spider-Man #39. Written by Zeb Wells and penciled by John Romita Jr. Romita Jr, Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz did the cover art. Gang War is underway! There were some awesome interaction between Spidey and She-Hulk. Tombstone is up. This is a great arc so far.
Daredevil #4. “Introductory Rites” Part Four. Written by Saladin Ahmed and art by German Peralta. John Romita Jr, Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz did the cover art. Daredevil confronts the Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich. We fins out why Ben has been acting as he has been.
The Sentry #1. Written by Jason Loo and penciled by Luigi Zagaria. Ben Harvey did the cover art. The book had me immediately when Jessica Jones showed up. She is one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. The recently murdered Sentry’s power seems to have been split up among a group of other people. Intriguing for sure.
Invincible Iron Man #13. “The Mysterium Marauders” Written by Gerry Duggan and art by Juan Frigeri. Kael Ngu did the cover art. Ironheart. Starfox. Tony Stark and Emma Frost. On the way to find the mysterious metal called Mysterium.
X-Men #29. “House of Doom.” Written by Gerry Duggan and art by Joshua Cassara. X-Men head into Latveria to attempt to recruit the Latverian mutants. They end up having dinner with Dr. Doom.
Blood Commandment #2. Written and drawn by Szymon Kudranski. Vampires, werewolves and absolutely beautiful art work. It is a shocking book filled with some amazing imagery. It is a remarkably designed book.
Transformers #3. Written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson. Big battle between Optimus Prime and Starscream. Watching Optimus beat Starscream with his own removed arm was epic. And a shocking moment with Spike.
Nights #3. “Never Knows Best.” Written by Wyatt Kennedy and art by Luigi Formisano. Vincent started off the book with a bit of a stain… it surprised me when I saw it. This book is a oddball coming of age story that looks at some supernatural as well.
Alpha Flight #5. “Divided We Stand Part Five” Written by Ed Brisson and art by Scott Godlewski with David Cutler. Leonard Kirk and Edgar Delgado did the cover art. The conclusion of Alpha Flight as they come together to save as many of the mutants from Krakoa North. I liked this book.
Avengers #8. “Twilight Dreaming” Part Two. Written by Jed MacKay and art by C.F. Villa. The Avengers have to confront Nightmare in order to get back to Vision and Scarlet Witch who were battling the Twilight Court. I loved what Thor does near the end with Nightmare. Otherwise, I do not have a great connection with the Twilight Court.
Other books this week: Destiny Gate #3, Midlife (or How to Hero at Fifty) #3, Project: Cryptid #3, The Avengers Voices #1.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 