Author Archives: Doc

Gen V S1 E2 &E3

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E2: “First Day”

E3: “#ThinkBrink”

With three episodes in to the new spin-off of The Boys, Gen V, I have enjoyed this new show. Much like The Boys, there is a shock factor involved, with unbelievable things happening.. for example the amazing start to episode two with a haunting version of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters as the pieces of Golden Boy are being swept up and his blood is being mopped up. However, that shock factor is not done just for shock. It is important to character or to the story. It is extremely well done.

These two episodes took Marie in a really different way. She battled with her own conflicts over her rankings and taking advantage of what happened with Golden Boy and how it made her look worse. It seemed as if she was moving toward becoming the corrupt ‘hero’ much like the Seven. Still, she was able to not succumb to the evil of the world.

Emma also has a great arc during these two episodes as we discovered the horrors of her powers, and how she gets taken advantage of by another influencer. She had a fall out with Marie and then they made up. Andre Anderson begins to look into the truth of the woods and discovered that Golden Boy’s brother Sam was still alive and held in the underground ‘hospital’ known as the woods. Andre talked Emma into going small and sneaking in to find Sam.

She did that and she and Sam bonded a bit. Of course, Emma lied to him about Luke having sent her in to see him. That ended with Emma crawling into a guard’s ear and climbing through his brain.

We get more with Kate in these two episodes, who is dealing with Luke’s suicide as well as her own feelings with Andre. Mental powers are always questionable and they are clearly taking a price on her.

These characters of Gen V have been awesome so far. They have gone into great details and character arcs to create deeper people and allowing me to be invested in the show. And I really am invested after the first three episodes.

Gen V S1 E1

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“God U”

So this was awesome.

The new series from the world of The Boys, Gen V premiered on Prime with the first three episodes dropped this past Thursday evening. I was not able to see episodes two and three, but I did see the first episode and I found it great.

A group of new, cool characters attending a school preparing them to be the next members of the Seven. It’s called Godolkin University and there are some clear questions about what is going on around the college.

We meet a young Marie Moreau and see when her blood control powers started, in one of the most shocking and tragic origins I have seen, her power led to the death of both of her parents and the estrangement of her sister.

Marie was the focus of the story and she was a wonderful new character. So was her roommate, Emma Meyer, a new shrinking character who had a YouTube channel and was desperate to do what she could to advance. Literally some of the sex scenes with Emma were something that I never thought I would see on TV.

Golden Boy Luke Riordan looked to have everything. It looked like he had his ticket punched to the Seven. However, his murderous rampage against Brink and his attempt to kill Marie would lead to his own death, exploding across the area. It was clear that the show had that same feel as The Boys did as you were never sure what could possibly happen.

Then, there is a mystery brewing with the woods that I am definitely interest with. It feels like it is some kind of psychological problem with the woods.

This started off really strong and I will be watching the other two available episodes this weekend.

Moonlighting Coming to Hulu!

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Some of the best news of the year popped up the other day.

Moonlighting is coming to the streaming service Hulu on October 10.

Wooo-Hooooo!

I loved Moonlighting back in the late 80s and anxiously waited every Tuesday night (although admittedly, not every Tuesday night as the show had a reputation of missing deadlines) for the romantic comedy/detective show featuring David Addison and Maddie Hayes.

The banter, the arguing, the slapstick, the slamming doors… it has everything.

It had an episode written in total iambic pentameter.

It had a nine-minute Billy Joel song with a dance routine.

It had a double dream sequence episode in black and white.

And I will be looking to rewatch all 67 episodes once it arrives on Oct. 10.

Moonlighting, which was my personal Wild Card inductee into the EYG Hall of Fame in 2023, was an awesome classic that help boost EYG Hall of Famer Bruce Willis into prominence while bringing Cybill Shepherd back to the forefront of the entertainment industry.

I can’t wait to add Moonlighting to the watch list.

Argylle Official Trailer

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This looks absolutely insane.

A spy thriller with an unbelievable cast.

They had me with John Cena. His appearance looked epic… and then it got wild.

Add Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Bryan Cranston, Ariana DeBose, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Boutella, Sam Rockwell, and Chip the cat, the real-life cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn.

Matthew Vaughn is the director and this trailer really excited me for a film that I had no idea about before today.

Coming in February 2024.

Gen V Official Redband Trailer

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Okay, this Boys spin-off (or series that falls in the same universe) is going to debut this weekend (officially September 29th) and so I thought this was a good trailer to revisit.

Gen V feels like the concept of the X-Men, a school that trains the future heroes. Of course, much like the Boys itself, this looks way bloodier than any X-Men product I have seen (even more than Logan).

The character called “Bloody Marie” looks extremely intriguing. That is not her actual character name, but it sounded cool.

I will be curious to see if this new series can be anywhere near as entertaining as The Boys, because if it is, this will be an awesome show.

It debuts on Prime.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #60

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September 26, 2023

Sixty posts in the EYG Comic Cavalcade. I have really enjoyed this part for EYG. Tomorrow is NEW COMIC BOOK DAY and this is the remaining issues from last week.

Let’s go!

Planetary #4. “Strange Harbours” Written by Warren Ellis and drawn by John Cassaday. I guess this is not a comic from last week’s NEW COMIC BOOK DAY, but it was one of the Planetary back issues that I got. This is really a good issue and I am enjoying the strangeness of the whole story. And this one was wild with an alien ship and another dimension.

Grim #13. “Chapter Thirteen: Interlude” Written by Stephanie Phillips and illustrated by Flaviano. I have no idea what this was. I did not know who these characters were or what was happening. Grim has been slipping down the list for me, so I hope this will pick up again.

X-Men Annual #1. “Contest of Chaos: Part Seven.” I really enjoyed this issue as we got the conflict with Captain Marvel and Cyclops. They made a fascinating pairing with their dialogue during the conflict. Looks like there is one more annual in this Contest of Chaos summer arc.

Deadpool: Badder Blood #4. Story by Rob Liefeld, script by Chad Bowers and penciled by Rob Liefeld. Deadpool, Logan, Venompool and… Spider-Man team up to bring down Killville and now they are off to save Thumper. Yeah, sound ridiculous… and awesome. Great full page panels filled with some awesome art.

Guardians of the Galaxy #6. “The Hand-Dug Grave.” Written by Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing and illustrated by Alex Lins. The cover art was by Marco Checchetto. This is a weird issue as the Guardians are dead? I think? This has to do with the Grootfall and I’m here for it. Weird is cool at times.

What If…? Dark: Carnage #1. Written by Larry Hama and art by John McCrea. Cover art was by Philip Tan, Jay Leisten and Rachel Rosenberg. I do love What Ifs, but this just was not very interesting. Todd had poo-pooed this book before I read it and so I just kind of skimmed it. It did not feel like a What If.

Haunt You to the End #4. Written by Ryan Cady and art by Andrea Mutti. Ghosts. Storms. Frighteningly scary things. This series feels as if it is picking up for a finale. Especially with a terrifying Commander Gersh at the end.

Omega the Unknown #5. “Through the Rat Hole… Into the Cat’s Lair” Written by Steve Gerber & Mary Skrenes and art by Jim Mooney. I have now caught up to the first issue of Omega that I picked up and was so intrigued by. This one wraps up the El Gato storyline. There are four more of these before it wraps up with a two-issue arc in Defenders.

Only Murders in the Building S3 E9

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“Thirty”

Happy birthday, Mabel!

Oh, and this dream sequence where Mabel gives birth to triples, one that looked like Charles, one that looked like Oliver and a microphone was trippy as hell. Funny too in an episode that had some things that just did not work.

Charles, Oliver and Mabel went through their clues, planning out a timeline (thanks to the recordings they had made of the interrogations) and eliminated suspects. The did a cool technique where they went through flashbacks to the opening night of the Broadway play and the three of them watched as it developed.

Everything lined up nicely and the suspect that they wound up determining was our killer, who poisoned Ben with a rat poisoned cookie and it was the person who I thought it was going to be, Donna DeMeo, the producer of Death Rattle. Apparently the shredded letter was a review panning Ben’s performance and Donna was afraid that the bad review would destroy her son’s career.

I thought it was Donna, but I also think we may have a bit of a twist coming. Could it be someone else who shoved Ben down the elevator shaft? I feel as if that is still a potential story beat for next week.

The episode ended with the three of them rushing to Loretta’s court appearance with Mabel dressed in a wedding dress. That did not really make much sense to me, but whatever.

I did like how they laid out this episode and how we learned about the events of the night of the poisoning. We also got a bit of a new look at Ben, who seems to not be as much of a jerk as we were led to believe.

However, I have a huge issue to speak about. The eight episode ended with Oliver in a dramatic heart attack as Loretta was taken away by the police. They had brought up the heart issues early in the season and I thought they were going to drop it. Yet, it came back at the end of the episode and it felt amazingly tense and frightening.

Then this episode opens up with Oliver fine. They put in a stint and he got right out of bed and never brought it back up again. The whole heart attack/heart issues was nothing but a waste of time and, if they were not going to treat this seriously, it should have been left out of the series.

Next week is the finale for season three and everything is set up for a big final episode.

Bonus Action Volume 1- Glassy & Dapper-Odd Jobs 1

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“Where friends don’t ley friends adventure alone.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I was excited about seeing this new YouTube series from the pReview’d guys Jay Schmidt and Adam Lash. They had talked about it being a D & D campaign, which I used to play years ago.

They were kicking off their 11 volume series with what is called “Odd Jobs 1” where the six member campaign would be split into pairs and run a minor campaign with the duo. The first week included Amanda Nicholas and Josh Hurley in a mission to find and recover an item called the glass menagerie.

David Armstrong was the DM (Dungeon Master) leading them through the story and playing the other characters of the world. He was excellent in this role as he provided great details of what was happening and provided a series of voices and accents.

Amanda and Josh both were playing barbarians, Amanda played Bar’b the Barbarian and Josh played Todd the Barbarian. These two were very enjoyable and entertaining with their improv and their game play. They did several things throughout the campaign that were creative and played off of their characters. Amanda was on fire with her dice role too.

When the campaign started, they dropped a word that we used many times that brought me back to our own campaigns, and it was ‘nondescript.’ Ah, nostalgia.

Jay and Adam were not on this episode, but their presence was absolutely felt. Jay’s laughter echoed through the video from off camera. Jay’s laugh is awesome and only makes you want to laugh as well. Adam’s hand appeared in the show moving the figurines around the board during the combat.

This was a lot of fun. I am not sure I can commit a regular two our block every Monday night to watch this as a debut, but I would like to try and fit it in some time during the week.

Congrats on a solid first volume.

Squid Game: The Challenge Trailer

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I thought this was the new trailer for the Squid Game 2 coming soon to Netflix.

It’s not.

I actually found another trailer for the show, but it was one of those fan made ones. I hate those because they are done so well these days that you can’t really tell if they are official.

This trailer is Squid Game: The Challenge, a new reality show/game show based on the Squid Game. I hadn’t heard anything about this show, but it does seem weird.

I can’t imagine that there would be anything near as intense or exciting about this as the series. I may give it a chance. It is on Netflix.

The X-Files S1 E3

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“Squeeze”

A great episode which started off with the first “monster-of-the-week” episode that would become one of the trope of the X-Files. Some of my personal favorite episodes were the the one-shot, one-off monsters of the week episodes.

This one is entitled “Squeeze” and featured Eugene Victor Tooms. Tooms would be back in later episodes, but this one really set up him as a monstrous villain who murdered people for their livers so he could survive while he hibernated. Weird.

We saw more of the disrespect “Spooky” Mulder gets from other FBI agents, including one that was a former classmate of Scully. That guy was a huge jerk. And this was the first point when Scully stood up and picked a side. When she had a chance to leave Mulder, she refused and went to Mulder’s side.

Doug Hutchinson played Tooms and he created one of the most iconic X-Files villains of the entire series. Tooms is creepy as hell and his confrontation with Scully in her apartment was really great.

The Bear S2 E9 & E10

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E9: Omelette

E10: The Bear

Season two of The Bear wrapped up with episodes 9 and 10 where the restaurant is nearly ready to go and they were planning a “friends and family” night to do a run through of the way to run The Bear.

Things did not go very smoothly to say the least.

Both Carmy and Sydney were going through their own crises as the opening and the night of the opening approached. Carmy was trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had been distracted by Claire and that his attention was divided. Sydney was struggling with her own self-doubt and her questions on if she is up to this job.

They are both getting in their own way and, because of that, are causing issues among the staff.

Still, the group really knock it out of the park at the opening, except for Carmy, who gets trapped in the walk in refrigerator because he had forgotten to call the “fridge guy,” and Sydney, who had made a problem with Marcus and shied away from the stress-spotlight. Richie was definitely the MVP of the night, showing how much he learned during episode 7. Fak is dressed in a suit and showing that he is more than just a handyman even if still carries a screwdriver in his suit coat pocket.

Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Donna, Carmy and Nat’s mother. She had been invited to come to the opening, but she could not bring herself to come inside, despite the sweetness from Pete toward her. You could tell that she was very proud of her kids, but that she was afraid that she would not be able to handle it and would ruin it for them. When Pete let slip about Nat’s pregnancy, it was clear that there were borders between them. Jamie Lee Curtis is tremendous once again. I really was not sure if the mother was still alive, but I am glad that she is still living since that means there is more drama from her.

This final two episodes were tremendous and brought a ton of drama to the front while setting up the questions for the series moving forward. The relationship between Carmy & Claire being one of the top ones. Can Carmy and Sydney overcome their own self-image issues? When will we see Jamie Lee Curtis again?

This was a great second season and the performances were off the charts.

American Horror Story: Delicate S12 E1

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“Multiply Thy Pain.”

I have not watched American Horror Story for several years.

I was a huge fan of the anthology series by Ryan Murphy in its early days. Season one Murder House, Season two Asylum, season four Freak Show, season six Roanoke are some of my favorite seasons of television around.

However, I did kind of lose interest as the seasons moved on. Part of it was the Wednesday night release time because there was conflicts with it and I never got around to watching it online. Part of it was that the stories had gotten a touch out there. In particular, Hotel and Cult had not grabbed my attention. It was a series that just slipped out of my necessary viewing.

Then, yesterday I was on Hulu looking at No One Will Save You when I saw the release of episode one for the 12th season of AHS, called Delicate. To say that I was intrigued would be an understatement. I decided that I would give a chance to the new series, especially if I could watch it easily on Hulu.

I am considering using Sunday morning to be the target date for the next episode, which seems as if it will be released once again on Wednesday nights. This feels like a nice weekly series designed to give me the creeps and to keep me unsettled. I do love me some good horror.

If this goes well, perhaps I will look into some of the other seasons that I have not seen or even to do a rewatch on some of the previous AHS seasons that I loved so much.

This new season kicked off with a really spooky beginning with actress Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts), who had just found some major success with a movie that no one expected to do anything, but went huge, in bed. However, there was some black hooded figure there too. Shocked by the arrival of this figure, Anna chased it out of the apartment only to find what looked like blood all over the floor beside the bed and on her nightgown. We discover later that it was not blood, but lipstick and that there was a message on the mirror, “Don’t do it, Anna.”

Anna and her husband Dexter (Matt Czuchry) were trying to get pregnant via a fertility expert but Anna was seeing things, believing that she was being stalked. Some of the scenes involving these women dressed in black with glasses were filled with anxiety, especially those with Miss Peecher (Julie White) and Ivy (Cara Delevingne), as we see what Anna was seeing. There feels as if there are things we do not know about Anna and that this is all tied together.

Kim Kardashian is playing Siobhan Corbyn, Anna’s friend and publicist and she does a great job with this character. I am curious about her motives and how she will play into the story that they are telling.

The story, for the first time, is not an original story as this is based on the novel Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine. It is also the first time that Ryan Murphy is not the showrunner for the series, as he has passed off the mantle to Halley Feiffer, who did Impeachment: American Crime Story.

There are some fun imagery involving spiders both in the episode and on the poster so I am curious to see where this takes me.

No One Will Save You

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Creepy, creepy, creepy!

No One Will Save You is a new sci-fi/horror film that is currently streaming on Hulu, and, I have got to tell you, it was a seriously scary, creepy film that left me a little uneasy after seeing it.

Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) is a young, isolated girl who lived in her deceased mother’s house while everyone in the town treated her like a pariah. Brynn was dealing with anxiety and guilt over something that happened when she was younger that turned the town against her.

Then, one night, a home invasion turned out to be extraterrestrial in nature and Brynn has to desperately struggle against a variety of alien creatures to survive.

The gimmick of the movie is that there is almost zero dialogue in the entire 90 minute movie which creates a feel of anxiety and stress throughout. I wasn’t sure if she was mute as the film went along but it got to the point where you could see that she was not speaking because of what had happened in her childhood.

The sounds that were used in this movie, from the score to the sound design was epic and helped create that mood that the film was targeting.

The alien design is cool for the most part. Some are fairly typical aliens that you might see on the X-Files but there are a couple that are really scary and unsettling.

Kaitlyn Dever does an admirable job in this movie as Brynn, who spends nearly the entire runtime of the film without any dialogue. She had to express so much with her face and eyes and she does it beautifully. This could be a star making performance for her.

This was a mind-bending horror film that does a great job of building atmosphere and keeping the audience off-kilter. This was a good time with a neat idea that took a lot of the concepts in original ways.

4.25 stars

Dumb Money

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After the bad film Expend4bles in the morning, I was really hoping that the second movie of the day would be better. Thankfully, I was entertained considerably more by Dumb Money than I was with that other film.

According to Imdb, “Dumb Money is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (yes, the mall videogame store) into the world’s hottest company. In the middle of everything is regular guy Keith Gill (Paul Dano), who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock and posting about it. When his social posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich – until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside down“

This true story that took place during the heart of the pandemic was amazing and really showed a conflict between the big money and the small investing individuals during this time over the GameStop stock. The movie focused in on several of the individuals and their own stories as well as Keith Gill, who was the driving force behind the movement through his online social media posts.

Paul Dano is excellent as always as the man who “just likes the stock” and who made millions through the stock market. Seth Rogen and Sebastian Stan are great as billionaires on the other side who were looking for a way to squash the online grassroots movement. There is a great cast here as well as those actors including Pete Davidson, Anthony Ramos, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Myha’la Herrold, Clancy Brown, Kate Burton, Shailene Woodley, and Talia Ryder.

Some of the technical aspects of the stock purchase is a touch complicated and could confuse some, but I feel as if the director, Craig Gillespie, does a decent job of making it accessible.

This was a lot of fun and enjoyable film and it told me about a story that I did not know about that had just happened in the recent past.

4.1 stars

Expend4bles

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I was not much of a fan of any of the previous Expendables franchise, though there were none that I truly hated. I did not want a fourth film, but you never know. Perhaps it is a good one after all.

Well, after seeing this, I can say that it is not a good one. Not even close. In fact, it is easily the worst of the franchise.

The Expendables are off on a mission to try and prevent a terrorist from getting his hands on nuclear detonators. When that mission goes south, the team deals with a loss and Christmas (Jason Statham) has to go rogue to prevent the dangerous situation.

There really is not much of a story. There is a mole inside the organization, but it was painfully apparent whom that was. Something happened in the first act that was so clearly not what happened that you were just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The dialogue of this movie was utter crap. It was legitimately some of the worst written dialogue that I have ever heard. It was meant to make Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham seem like they have fun banter, but it was so eye-rollingly bad that it only served to make me dislike these two characters all the more.

And the remaining characters I couldn’t care one thing about because the movie didn’t give me any reason to care for any of them. Megan Fox looks great, but her character is lacking any sort of personality. Andy Garcia, the new boss, is a nothing character. Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren were old and looked it. 50 Cent, Jacob Scipio, and Levy Tran all have newer characters that I have no idea who they are or why I should care about them. The only one with any sort of characterization is Tony Jaa, and that was basically because he looked cool.

The green screen was obscenely noticeable for a film from 2023. The action was consisting of a lot of shaky cam and boring gunplay. Even some of the martial arts was not up to par, considering some of the top notch martial artists that they had in the film.

I would have considered this the worst movie of the year, but I did watch Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey this year and, while this is horrible, it does not reach that level of bad.

0.5 stars