I watched the next two episodes of The Bear from season one tonight on Hulu. This show has been cooking (ooh, bad pun, I know).
Episode 5: “Sheridan”
Episode 6: “Ceres”
I would say that I really enjoyed episode five a lot. This was the first time where I found that the whole group of characters started working as a team without any troublemakers (except Richie, of course). This episode saw just about anything that could go wrong, go wrong from the toilet exploding to loss of electricity and gas lines. Yet the staff pulled it together to still serve the food.
They do a great job of letting us know the stakes involved in the show. You believe that there is no way that they can survive shutting down their restaurant because they just can not afford to lose the money they would have made. I really enjoyed seeing how they were working together to overcome this series of events that were potentially overwhelming.
Sydney brought the fire in both this episode and episode 6. In six, she is able to calm down a possible gang fight outside of the restaurant by arranging to give them some leftover sandwiches. While she was taking care of business, Richie was running around the restaurant looking for his gun.
Richie is showing his own weaknesses in each episode, even though in five he comes through in a sense. When Carmy discovers that Richie has been selling cocaine out the alley behind the restaurant, he is extremely mad, but he needs Richie to sell some one more time to pay for a repair that they had to fix. After this, though, it does feel as if everyone in the restaurant is feeling their place except for Richie.
In episode six, we get a flashback where we see Michael for the first time, played by Jon Bernthal, telling a story to Carmy, Richie and Sugar. Bernthal is an outstanding actor and seeing him as the mysterious older brother makes me very anxious to see what events or emotional situations led to Michael’s suicide. Richie does imply that Michael was the person who told him to sell the cocaine in the first place, as a way of gaining money for the restaurant. This makes me wonder considering how much money Michael had borrowed from Oliver Platt’s character, what was happening with the money.
There are only two more episodes from season one and I expect them to be fire.
The third episode of the third season of Only Murders in the Building dropped last night on Hulu.
I have to say, so far this season is a little slower than previous seasons. The episode focused more on Oliver’s attempt to transform his Broadway play from Death Rattles to a musical called Death Rattle Dazzles. Sure the killer is suspected to be among the cast, but there was not enough detail on the case and too much on the play itself, for my tastes.
Not to say that this was a bad episode. Not at all. In fact, I did enjoy much of what they presented us, thanks mainly to the talents of Steve Martin and Martin Short. There was a lovely song sung by Meryl Streep too. Mabel was able to do some actual investigating making some progress with the documentarian, Tobert.
I just hope that they do not make Meryl Streep the killer in this season. It just seems too played out to have a woman who is involved with one of our two leads be the culprit again.
The show is starting off by hinting toward Kimber (Ashley Park) as the first suspect. She had been emotional about the death and she had lost her hankie that Ben had given to everyone. We know that Ben wound up with a hankie in his hand after falling to his death and that it was not his own, because the stalker had the hankie that belonged to Ben.
Kimber seems to clearly be the red herring at first. I’m more interested in the brother at the moment.
There are ten total episodes of the series this year so we a just about a third of the way through.
I was looking for something to watch this afternoon and I came across a TV series that I have heard all kinds of positive things about. It was on Hulu and it is called The Bear.
I know The Bear is one of the top comedy-dramas on television right now, with a Hulu/FX release and that they have produced two seasons. I also knew that the show was based around food. I thought this was a good show to watch.
It will not be a daily watch like I did for The Twilight Zone this summer. School is starting very soon (this week for teachers) so I cannot commit to the daily view. Still, there were only 8 episodes of season one and ten episodes of season two, so it did not feel too overwhelming.
I watched the first four episodes of season one today. They included:
S1 E1: System
S1 E2: Hands
S1 E3: Brigade
S1 E4: Dogs
I started by trying to learn who the main characters were and the place where the show started us off at. Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (James Beard Award) returned to Chicago to run his brother Michael’s restaurant, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, after Michael had committed suicide.
Carmy had been working as a chef in one of the most successful restaurants in the world and he came to the Original Beef and started to shake things up, which alienated the staff and Michael’s best friend Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who had been running the restaurant prior to this. The staff was unhappy to be changing their system that was already in place.
Carmy hired trained chef Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) to help him organize things, which placed her in an unpleasant situation as well.
There are some definite funny moments in the show, especially when Richie accidentally puts his Xanax into the Ecto punch that they made for this birthday party they were catering.
Richie is very loud and abrasive, but you can see deep down that he is a caring person who loves his family. I still wanted Richie to just shut up after a while though.
The ensemble at the restaurant were a motley crew of characters. My personal favorites were Tina Marrero (Liza Colón-Zayas), who was a line cook that was pretty stubborn and hard-headed about the changes and Sydney, in particular. There was also Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce) who spent several parts of these episodes learning how to make donuts and cake.
Oliver Platt appeared in a couple of these first two episodes, who was a friend of Carmy’s late father, and who lent Michael a ton of money for the restaurant.
Some of the characters were difficult to like at first, but it feels like a show where the characters will grow on me, as I like a few more already.
And James Beard Award is excellent as our lead character. He has a ton of early depth and I am anxious to see how he deals with his troubles. At one point, he sleepwalks at his house and starts cooking wrapped up meat on his stove, leading to a fire that could have burned down his place.
I can see why people are saying that The Bear is one of the top shows on TV. I am excited to see where they take it and I expect that some of the issues will come to the forefront as the series progresses.
I picked up a trade paperback of the first four issues of Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. I had heard plenty about this series and, with my recent entry into the independents, I wanted to check it out. I loved that trade paperback a lot. That sent me to eBay to look for the whole series. They arrived in the mail and I worked through issues #5-20 that remained.
However, when I finished issue #20, it was strange. There was no mention of it being the final issue and there was even a mention of #21. It did not feel like a finale issue as the story was not wrapped up in a truly satisfactory manner. Was this series not done? What was going on? I searched for #21 on eBay and found that it was not there. So I went to Google to search about the series and I discovered the ugly tale.
Apparently, co-creator and artist Jason Latour got himself in trouble with the way he handled himself, specifically with several women accusing him of sexual misconduct and harassment. He seemingly dropped off the map around 2020 and has only recently come back to do some conventions.
There have been hints that maybe the series would come back and I found a comment from Jason Aaron that implied that the fans should not forget about Southern Bastards.
Switching gears from the negativity surrounding the series, the actual story was sensational.
You have some of the most interesting and yet most horrendous characters populating this small county that apparently is run by the local high school football coach, Euless Boss. Coach Boss was a deep character with a horrendous back story which made the readers understand the violent choices that the coach made.
There were shocks throughout. The series introduced a character named Earl Tubb who absolutely felt like the protagonist of the series, only to kill him off in the fourth issue, by being beaten to death by Coach Boss in the street. We see a younger Euless Boss shoot his own father in the head for a local criminal in order to wind up as the coach. There was a black, blind man named Big, who was a sort of savant in football. He helped Euless when he was trying to originally make the football team and stuck beside him as his defensive coordinator until he blew his brains out.
I do not think that you need to be a football fan to enjoy this series. Football is at the center but it is also a deep character piece as well as a serious crime drama.
I do hope that they are able to return some day and put a finishing touch on the series so it does not end up with #20. Issue #20 was a good issue, but it did not serve as a sufficient finale for such a fantastic series.
Today I went back to AMC in Dubuque for the first time since prior to the pandemic. AMC had a film that I had never seen advertised anywhere. It was a sci-fi story called The Pod Generation.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “In a not-so-distant future, AI is all the rage and nature is becoming a distant memory. Tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share pregnancy on a more equal footing via detachable artificial wombs, or pods. But at what cost? Rachel (Emilia Clarke) and Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a New York couple, are ready to take their relationship to the next level and start a family. Rachel’s work gives them a chance to fast-track to the top of the Pegazus waiting list. But Alvy, a botanist and devoted purist has doubts. Nonetheless, his love for Rachel prompts him to take a leap of faith. And so begins the wild ride to parenthood in this brave new world with all its twists, turns, and bumps along the way.“
Honestly, the sci-fi aspects of the film were very odd. The film felt very modern with the exception of this weird pregnancy thing.
I found this to be overlong. It was almost two hours and I think it needed to cut that down to about an hour and forty minutes or so. Some of the early scenes were dull at times. Then the ending came out of nowhere and it was just done. I’m not sure the main plotline was fully dealt with.
However, I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor in this. He was remarkably charming and relatable in every scene as he bonded with the pod. Without him, this would not have been an enjoyable film at all. Emilia Clarke was solid too. I liked how it played against type having her not immediately bond with the pod and seeing how other pregnant women, especially those who were having the natural way, bonded with their child. That was clearly lacking for Clarke and she played that confusion well.
I do think that the movie had some really big ideas with its themes, but I do not think that the film reached those goals at any point in the time. It feels like a film that could have been better with another run or two through the editing bay.
Still, Ejiofor is great and does have some good chemistry with Clarke. There are some funny moments and the film gets credit for trying something different.
I have been a Los Angeles Dodger fan since I have been a fan of baseball.
I remember when I became a Dodger fan. I was in fourth grade and two of my classmates asked me who I was cheering for in the World Series, the Yankees or the Dodgers. I had no idea. My parents were not sports fans so I was not exposed to baseball. I remember hearing Dodgers so I responded the Dodgers. They both said ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Alright!’ so I figured I made the right choice. From that point on, I became completely engaged in the sport and the history of it. I learned everything I could about baseball and the Dodgers.
One of my favorite players of all time is Fernando Valenzuela. I will always remember his amazing rookie season and how much I was behind him. Fernandomania was massive and created a unbelievable culture among the Mexican-American community of LA and nationwide!
Tonight in Los Angeles at Chavez Ravine, the Los Angeles Dodgers retire Fernando Valenzuela’s number 34.
The Dodgers have had a rule that the only numbers that are retired were members of the MLB Hall of Fame. The only numbers retired by LA have been Jackie Robinson’s #42, Pee Wee Reese’s #1, Tommy Lasorda’s #2, Duke Snyder’s #4, Gil Hodges’ #14, Jim Gilliam’s #19 (an exception to the rule as Gilliam was not a HoF member), Don Sutton’s #20, Walter Alston’s #24, Sandy Koufax’s #32, Roy Campanella’s #39, and Don Drysdale’s #53.
Nicknamed ‘El Toro,’ Valenzuela was a left hander who brought one of the more devastating and unusual pitches to the forefront of baseball, the screwball. Plus, during his windup, Valenzuela would look to the sky, and then close his eyes…before delivering his pitch to the batter. How difficult it had to be to be the batter and know this guy isn’t looking at you.
Fernando had a career record of 173-153, and, in his rookie season of 1981, went 13-7 (after winning his first 8 games), had 20 complete games (which is unheard of today), won the Rookie of the Year Award, the Cy Young Award and helped lead the Dodgers to the World Series victory.
Fernando is currently working as one of the Dodgers’ broadcasters on their Spanish broadcast.
He is one of my favorite players of all time and he deserves the honor that he is receiving tonight in Los Angeles. It is way overdue.
So this film turned out to be much different than I expected it to be.
Milton (Ben Kingsley) is an older man living alone, beginning to show signs of forgetting things that worries his daughter Denise (Zoe Winters). One day, a spaceship crashed landed in Milton’s backyard and he finds an alien on his back step. Taking the alien inside, Milton bonds with the silent spaceman despite some of his comments to other people in the town lead to Denise doubting whether Milton could take care of himself anymore.
There are some parts of the premise for this movie that made me iffy about it. Specifically, the choice for the alien, eventually named Jules, to be silent is always a challenge. With one character that is verbal and the other character that is non-verbal makes it difficult to connect. However, the film does a smart thing and gives Kingsley two verbal connections in the film in Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris, as the characters of Joyce and Sandy respectfully, to interact with.
Truthfully, this film is not about Jules. It is about the three human characters and the loneliness that they feel. Jules is just the catalyst of the plot to bring Milton, Joyce and Sandy into their own orbits and to examine their personal issues at a deeper level. Each of the three characters brought a different set of troubles that were very familiar to any person, especially those of an advancing age.
I absolutely loved Harriet Sansom Harris in this film. She was such a warm and loving person who seemed to find such a connection with Jules, something that she was missing in her life. Harris is a great actor and she had excellent chemistry with Ben Kingsley. Kingsley was also excellent here as a lot of his acting came with some specific non-verbal moments, with glances and looks that told more than just his words could. Jane Curtin had less to do in the story, but she did knock home what she got to do.
The relationships were the key, but the plot itself was not working near as well. In fact, a lot of the plot of the film seemed just in the way, in particular part of the story that involved a government agency. There was also a story beat involving cats that was simply weird.
So while the film does not come together very well, the strength of the ensemble really works. This is much more of a character piece than a sci-fi movie. There are some funny moments and some deeper than expected ideas. Though everything does not necessarily work well together and I may not have loved the ending, the strength of Kingsley, Harris and Curtin made me want to know what was to become of these characters and that is a success for a film.
Dracula returns in a manner in which we have never seen him before in the latest horror film called The Last Voyage of the Demeter from director André Øvredal, known for 2010’s Troll Hunter and 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe.
This story is adapted from a chapter of the original Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, detailing the voyage of a ship that transported Dracula from Romania to London. This film goes into more specific details of the crew of the Demeter and the victims of the ill-fated ship.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter creates a creepy atmosphere and goes all-in on some choices that were surprising and unexpected in the narrative. It basically took the character of Dracula and looked at it more as a monster that the crew of the Demeter were desperately trying to survive.
The film, for the most part, looked really great. Its dark mood was translated with the use of the shots on the ship and it built a hopeless feel with its claustrophobic setting. The full shots of the ship on the sea was consistently beautiful giving us the feel of how trapped the sailors must have been.
Most of the performances were well done. Corey Hawkins was the lead protagonist, Dr. Clemens, who had a strength throughout the film. The Demeter captain, Eliot was played by Liam Cunningham, who brought a soulfulness to this character, trying to maintain his leadership through a terrible loss. David Dastmalchian played Wojchek, the second in command. Dastmalchian never fails to be excellent. The young actor Woody Norman, who played Toby, has some difficult scenes to carry out and does an admirable job of it. I should also shout out the performance of Stefan Kapicic who has some of the best and most frightening scenes of the film.
Now, there are some problems with the film. It is about 15-20 minutes too long. There was a repetitiveness that comes from the length. Even shaving off about 10 minutes would have helped the narrative. The finale of the third act was not as well done as the remainder of the film. Some of it just felt like they needed to end with a big confrontation and it did not all work.
There was a lot of really positive things in the film, but a lot of it just does not tied together too well. One of the issues I had was that none of these people, even the Cambridge-educated doctor, seemed to be very smart. Maybe I brought my own Vampire-lore knowledge into the film and these people would not have the prior background knowledge I had about vampires, but it seemed as if there was enough physical evidence that occurred during the film that they could have formulated a better, more effective plan than the silly one they eventually came up with at the end.
The movie was the most effective when it focused on the psychological aspects of the situation instead of the action beats.
Still, I found it to be mostly entertaining, included a great character design for Dracula and some truly brutal moments that were bloody and a couple that hit hard.
Whoa, I have been working hard on my comic collection. Bags. Boards. Boxes. It’s been insane. I decided the other day that it was time to dive into the piles of comics around here in an attempt to get everything boxed and boarded and organized. It is quite the chore.
I bought four short boxes at Comic World just yesterday and they are basically accounted for, though I am still filling one with completed series. The box I am working on right now has Web of Spider-Man (2021), Savage Spider-Man, Sinister War, The Conjuring: The Lover, Silver Surfer: Rebirth, Ben Reilly: Spider-Man, Namor, Heroes Reborn in it so far. The biggest challenge is finding these complete issues. I know I have them, but who knows where they are boxed.
I pulled out a short box last night and it had a ton of issues from other series in it, with no organization at all. I have a bunch of boxes to go through that are already bagged and boarded and some that are not.
When I get through with this, my hope it to go into the older part of the collection and re-box/bag/board those books as well. That however, is down the road. A long term goal, if you will.
Yesterday was also the last day this summer that I could go to Comic World on NEW COMIC BOOK DAY and spend the afternoon reading and hanging out with the employees there. My friend Todd, who has been a regular character in the Comic Cavalcade, has made my Wednesdays a lot of fun. I’m going to miss it when I have to head back to school next Wednesday. Of course, I will head down to Comic World after school next Wednesday to pick up my comics. Still, it will not be quite the same.
Update: Good news this week because Haunt Your to the End #3 was in my box at Comic World. It was the most recent issue 3 that was out this week. It is a pretty decent horror story, with the characters in search of ghosts to prove their existence. However, the issue three trauma remains as I am still missing The Seasons Have Teeth #3. I have #4 in my hands right now, but three is still a mystery.
This week’s DC Knight Terrors issues were really good. Night Terrors #3 was really enjoyable despite one of the ugliest variant covers I have seem. Knight Terrors: Robin#2 was excellent with Jason Todd and Tim Drake working together. Knight Terrors: The Flash #2 was probably the weakest of the issues, but told a good story with Barry and Wall. Knight Terrors: Zatanna #2 was very good too. I liked the pairing of Zatanna and Robotman. Knight Terrors: Shazam #2 featured Mary Marvel and showed her strength. Finally, Knight Terrors: Green Lantern #2 was ok. Probably down with Flash this week.
By the way, the Marvel books this month are honoring the life of John Romita Sr. who passed away earlier this year. They have three pages at the beginning of their books highlighting some of his classic work. RIP John Romita Sr.
Here are the rest of the books this week…
Amazing Spider-Man #31. Written by Zeb Wells and drawn by John Romita Jr. & Emilio Laiso. Cover art was by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz. This featured the attempted wedding of Robbie Robertson to Beetle. Crime lords of New York all were in attendance and things only went to crap. Very good story. There are also a bunch of shorts at the end of the oversized issue (the Legacy number was 925 so I guess it’s time for a celebration. All the shorts deal with things that are going to be happening in the Spider-family books over the next few months. My favorite was the one with Ms. Marvel and Spidey talking about her death.
The Enfield Gang Massacre #1. “Chapter One: The Bad Death of Bill Barley.” Written by Chris Condon and featuring artwork by Jacob Phillips. Set in the world of That Texas Blood series that I loved so much, I was really excited to see this new issue and I was not disappointed. The time frame was earlier than the other series, but this moved quickly as we learned about the man known as Montgomery Enfield and the death of Bill Barley. The best part of the comic was the design. It had a definite feel of an old time comic. The pages seemed like I was reading an old comic. it even had the smell of old paper. It was a cool reading experience.
Barnstormers #2. “Chapter Two” Written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Tula Lotay. Bix and Tillie find themselves in trouble after they were found by her former fiancée. Until this moment, they had been bonding and falling for each other as they continued their air show. Big trouble arrives at the end of the issue setting up for a dramatic conclusion next month.
Damn Them All #7. Written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Charlie Adlard. Elle and her bad behavior returned to search for the coins that possess the demons from Hell. A new wrinkle has arrived though in the form of angels.
Swan Songs #2. “The end of… a Marriage.” Written by W. Maxwell Prince and art by Caspar Wijngaard. This anthology series about apocalyptic moments focused in on the falling apart of an actual marriage and how these two people fell in and out of love. And how they wind up fighting each other forever. Neat twist on this book.
House of Slaughter #16. “Alabaster Part One.” A new story arc for this book. I had a little difficulty getting into this one. Here’s hoping that I will be able to grab more of an interest as it moves along.
Ghost Rider Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance #1. “Sympathy for the Devil.” Logan and Johnny Blaze team up to pursue a child possessed by some monster/demon. The child had come to see Professor X, but was turned away as he was not a mutant. We get some look at Logan and Blaze’s past and their beginnings.
Guardians of the Galaxy #5. “Last Stand at Torment Pass” Written by Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing and illustrated by Kev Walker. Marco Checchetto did the cover art. The Guardians have come together and are trying to find a way to save Groot. Things do not look like it is going very well.
Ghostlore #4. Written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Leomacs. Lucas and Harmony are heading their separate ways… or at least that is what Harmony has decided. As she was writing a letter to her father, Lucas is dealing with a spirit in his church that was tied to a witch execution in the past.
Silk #4. Written by Emily Kim and art by Ig Guara. Dave Johnson did the cover art. Cindy Moon is out of the movie-inspired dream world and is facing off with the monster that Saya Ishii has turned herself into. Silk is doing a dream storyline too at the same time as DC’s Knight Terrors is happening.
Red Goblin #7. Written by Alex Paknadel and drawn by Jan Bazakdua with Rafael Pimentel. Normie can not control his symbiote, Rascal, who is out of control in his attempt to save Tim. Can Miles Morales help out?
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #9. “Spun Out Part Two.” Written by Cody Ziglar and drawn by Federico Vicentini & Federico Sabbatini. Dike Ruan & Alejandro Sanchez did the cover art. Miles and Starling go into a deep battle with Hobgoblin.
Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #2. “Part Two: The Spooky Case of the Girl with the Pocket Portal.” Carol Danvers and a group of kids try to survive in space as the new villain Nada and Nitro are trying get revenge on Carol.
Children of the Vault #1. “Tomorrow’s Children.” Written by Deniz Camo with art by Luca Maresca. Variant cover by Betty Cola. My variant cover featured Loki’s Miss Minutes, which was fun, but not tied to the book at all. We got a bit of a team up with Cable and Bishop along with a group of characters that I did not know at all. I liked the MIss Minutes cover, but the rest of the book was iffy at best.
Spider-Man Annual #1. “Contest of Chaos: Part One.” Written by Stephanie Phillips and drawn by Alberto Foche. R.S. Silva did the cover art. The Contest of Chaos is a storyline that will be carried over the annuals in Marvel. This one found a fight between Spider-Man and Wolverine over a mysterious orb. It is tied to the newly young Agatha Harkness. It looks to cross over with all of the annuals moving ahead.
Avengers #4. Written by Jed MacKay and art by C.F. Villa. Stuart Immonen did the cover art. The Avengers are facing off with the new force called The Ashen Combine, and they are being pushed to their limits.
I was reading the graphic novel Ultrasound the other day and, after I was done and was working on the EYG Comic Cavalcade, I realized that there was a movie based on the graphic novel too. In fact, it was being filmed before the graphic novel was released.
I found the movie version on Hulu and I was excited to see if the movie was as much as a crazy ride as the graphic novel was. And the short answer to that question was… absolutely.
According to IMDB, “After his car breaks down, Glen spends one hell of an odd night with a married couple, setting into motion a chain of events that alter their lives plus those of several random strangers.“
It is difficult to go into any details on this movie without spoiling things… even if I was sure what exactly had happened. It did help that I had read the graphic novel because it helped me see what was going on at times. The movie was a fairly honest adaptation of the graphic novel by Conor Stechschulte.
Performances were all solid, even though I did not recognize any of the actors. Vincent Kartheiser played Glen and Chelsea Lopez played Cyndi, the main two protagonists in the film. They do a great job of carrying the strange story with these characters whom you are never sure what they are like.
It felt like a low budget independent film at times, but it moved well and it does a really good job of telling this challenging story. I see on IMDB that Conor Stechschulte wrote the script on the film as well as the graphic novel so I can see why it was such a honest translation.
Hulu’s original series, Only Murders in the Building, debuted late last night with two episodes. Season three features Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd joining the cast.
The end of season two saw Paul Rudd’s character Ben Glenroy, apparently being murdered during the start of the new play directed by Oliver (Martin Short). He fell done and looked to have been poisoned.
After he was declared dead, Oliver insisted that the whole crew still go back to his apartment for the opening night wrap party. Surprisingly, Ben showed up very much not dead.
Never fear, Ben’s fate was soon to be sealed as he would die once again by falling down the elevator shaft. Thus it works with the title of “Only Murders in the Building” and it will lead to the return of the podcast.
Lots of little to vital pieces were being laid out to set up this season’s mystery. These moments included:
Oliver had a minor heart attack and is supposed to manage stress… something that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Mabel was feeling lost as she has to move out of her aunt’s apartment in the Astoria in a few weeks. She was a fan of Ben, who was a well known actor.
Charles & Mabel are kidnapped by one of Ben’s stalkers, who was going to kill them for his belief that Charles had killed Ben. The police are blaming the stalker for the murder of Ben, but Mabel was not convinced.
Oliver and Loretta (Meryl Streep) have some kind of connection, potentially romantic.
Loretta was an aspiring actress who had never got a break.
Ben was a real jerk, being the over-the-top actor type character who is blunt and rude to many people.
Charles had gotten Ben fired from a job on the cop show when Ben was a child and Ben was still angry over it.
There was a musical interlude during one of Oliver’s dreams that included his son, Charles and Mabel. This was a tremendous moment of the show and it led to Oliver wanting to rebrand his play, Death Rattle, as a musical.
The chemistry with Steve Martin and Martin Short is once again just off the charts and Selena Gomez fits beautifully in with the two legends. You can’t go wrong with Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd either so the acting should be wonderful this season. Each of the characters have their own arc centering around the main murder story too.
Hey, new banner! I really like this new one, with the yellow background. I wanted to debut this one so this is a light edition.
In fact, I only have one thing to talk about here, but it is a wild one. It is an Eisner Award nominated graphic novel called Ultrasound, by Conor Stechschulte.
I see that it is also a 2021 movie of the same title, which now goes on my to watch list. I found it on Hulu and I played it on my watchlist. I hope to get to it sometime this week.
What a wild book this is.
This is what was written on the back of the graphic novel. “Following a strange sexual encounter, Glen and Cyndi become entangled in a web of gaslighting, mind control, deception and political intrigue in this dizzying thriller.“
“Who can you trust when your own memory becomes a tool for manipulation.”
This story was amazingly challenging to follow as you are never quite sure what is going on and if it is actually happening. Glen and Cyndi are fascinating characters that are easy to root for, but who are they really? How much of what happened to them actually happens to them? I’m still not 100% sure. I love that kind of uncertainty in my books.
This is an absolutely adult-themed books, with some graphic scenes of a sexual nature. However, that sex scene is vitally important to what goes on in this story. The artwork is good, but the coloring makes it really stand out.
It is 376 pages, but it reads very fluidly. It definitely feels like a graphic novel that could benefit from a re-read. This was a very compelling tale.
A movie that had been filmed five years ago was dropped on Netflix last week and had some initial success. Hidden Strike featured a team-up between John Cena and Jackie Chan.
According to IMDB, “Two ex-special forces soldiers must escort a group of civilians along Baghdad’s “Highway of Death” to the safety of the Green Zone.“
This is not a great movie. It is not the worst thing I have seen, but it definitely depends on the personalities of John Cena and Jackie Chan to get by and, unfortunately, the writing does not give them much help because some of the dialogue is eye-rollingly bad.
There is a lot of action, specifically with hand-to-hand fights featuring Cena and Chan. There is nothing here that we haven’t seen before and better.
There was a lot of poor CGI in this movie too with some very ugly work. Not only in the fighting sections, but some areas that were painfully obvious green screen.
The chemistry between the two main leads help to make this a serviceable thriller, but so much more could have been done with this film. There was a reason why it hadn’t been released until it was dropped on Netflix.
One of the goals I set for myself this summer was to finally watch the extended edition of Zach Snyder’s Batman v. Superman. I had never watched the extended version and I had heard from lots of people that it helped fix some of the things in B v S that were wrong. SO I had time today before SummerSlam so I pulled up Max and watched the 3 hour + film.
Sadly, there are so many things still wrong with this movie that I just did not find enough new to say that I enjoyed it.
It seemed to me that most of the added pieces gave more time to the secondary stories that helped to build the world around Batman and Superman and that part of this movie was not a problem for me. In fact, I still think the set up of the story worked for the most part. I understood Batman’s desire to stop Superman (maybe not his bloodthirsty desire to kill him).
Luthor’s plan still makes no sense. Superman’s decisions when Lex confronted him still feels forced. And lets not get started on “Martha,” perhaps the worst moment in any major comic book movie.
I wonder what it would have been like had we not known that Wonder Woman and Doomsday were going to be in this movie? Both were spoiled in trailers and both could have been total WTF moments if they hadn’t been.
This movie tried to shove way too much into this film. A film that should have been two at the very minimum wasted the Death of Superman arc by cramming it into a third act explosion-fest. I have to say though the constant explaining that the areas were deserted or uninhabited after the controversy over Man of Steel’s third act was veyr funny.
So much of the dialogue of BvS was forced and did not feel as if real characters would speak that way. In particular the scenes between Superman and Batman just was so wooden and the entire fight could have been solved by one sentence.
I found nothing that was added that made things better. Batman v. Superman remains one of the biggest missteps in comic book movie history and is one of the major reasons why the DCEU could never find continued success.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 