Author Archives: Doc

Daily Countdown: TV Shows #3

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#3

Moonlighting

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Good!”

“Good!”

*Door slams*

*Door slams*

That was a scene that happened many times during the run of Moonlighting, a show that went for four seasons on ABC starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.

Set at teh Blue Moon Detective Agency, Maddie Hayes had lost almost all of her fortune to a crooked accountant and she was forced to work in one of the few businesses remaining, a detective agency. There, she met David Addison, a wise cracking, song singing, limbo dancing private eye who challenged her to expand her life.

Moonlighting is one of the best shows on TV. It also felt down to earth quicker than any show on TV. The whole “will they won’t they” aspect of the show kept the viewers glued to their screen, but, when they did, much of the magic was gone.

Still, David and Maddie were amazing together. Charming, fighting, arguing, detecting. They could do anything.

One of the things that they could do was break the fourth wall. This was one of the first shows that I specifically saw do this technique and I found it hilarious. Another specialty of this show was the special episodes… the dream sequences. They had a show called “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice” where David and Maddie had dreams that they were musicians in an old time club. Another episode saw them dancing to “Big Man on Mulberry Street.”

But one of the greatest episodes of all time was “Atomic Shakespeare” which Maddie and David played the roles of Katharina and Petruchio in a satire of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” This episode was written in iambic pentameter and was an absolute joy.

The last season and a half was much weaker, but the first two and a half was some of the best TV of all time. I remember planting myself in front of the TV every Tuesday night to watch Moonlighting… although their behind the scenes challenges and fights caused many of those nights to be a rerun.

When compiling this list, I debated between #3 and #2 for Moonlighting, and it could easily be flipped. Moonlighting made Bruce Willis a superstar and helped him get Die Hard.

“Blue Moon Investigations ceased operations on May 14, 1989. The Anselmo Case was never solved… and remains a mystery to this day.”

IT: Welcome to Derry S1 E7

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Spoilers

“The Black Spot”

What a horrific episode.

I can honestly say that it nearly made me turn it off.

Rich died in the horrendous fire set at the Black Spot. I have not felt this empty after a scene on TV in a long time. It had that same feeling the night Negan killed Glen on the Walking Dead. I understand stakes, but some times the stakes are just too high.

Plus, to have Rich go out saving Marge, sacrificing himself.. I’m sorry, I just can’t handle it.

I have a terrible feeling that the racist bastards that set that fire at the Black Spot will not get their comeuppance. That radio report the next morning was absolutely sickening.

I was satisfied by IT killing Kersh. Chopping the top of his head off was great, though the clown taking a few bites from the head was gross.

Outside of the fire, we get some real background on Pennywise… specifically the original clown before IT took his form. IT realized that children were attracted to Pennywise, and that is why the monster took the form of a clown.

The army jumped into the horrible aspect too as they found and destroyed one of the pillars. Because the nation needs to be afraid… to have fear.

Pennywise showing up at Will’s house at the end will lead into the finale next week.

That fire nearly wiped me out. That was a nightmare.

Pluribus S1 E6

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Spoilers

“HDP”

John Cena???

The last thing I expected was to see John Cena on a TV screen during Pluribus, E6. I guess it makes sense since he was not one of the survivors. It gave me that Bill Murray in Zombieland vibe.

It was also weird when the shocking revelation from the end of last week’s episode, was wrapped up in just a few minutes.

It was human parts being stored in the warehouse that Carol found, but they were those who had already died, and we being used as HDP, Human-Derived Protein, something they need to survive.

All told to us by John Cena. That still blows my mind.

Carol heads off to Vegas with this shocking tape to find Koumba Diabaté. He showed her the Cena tape. He also tells her the only way they would be turned into the Hive-mind was via use of their individual stem cells and the would require permission to access them.

Big piece of info there, but the HDP reveal felt a touch flat for as wild as the ending to last week was. However, the John Cena cameo was awesome.

The guy from Paraguay found Carol’s tape and got into his car. I knew he would be playing a bigger role moving forward. I wonder if he plans on driving to New Mexico?

Blue Moon

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December usually brings a series of potential Oscar contenders out, whether it be in the theaters or on streaming. I had heard about a performance by Ethan Hawke in a film called Blue Moon, where he played Lorenz Hart, a popular lyricist who worked with Richard Rodgers. It was available for rental on Fandango At Home so I gave it a shot.

The film is set in one location, Sardi’s restaurant on the night of the Broadway opening of Oklahoma!, a musical written by Hart’s longtime writing partner Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Hart was jealous, regretful and melancholy over the new musical, and spoke to the others

Hawke was astonishing in the performance because he had such a monumental amount of dialogue. This entire movie was built around the words being said by Lorenz Hart and the others in the restaurant. The monologues were extremely noticeable and stood out as some of the best writing of the year.

I absolutely can see this being nominated for an Academy Award for Best original Screenplay. The words of the film was as much of the star of this film as any of the actors.

There were a few notable actors in the cast along with Ethan Hawke. That included Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott, Bobby Cannavale, Simon Delaney and Jonah Lee.

Robert Linklater directed Blue Moon, providing the pathway for the actors to deliver the lines of the script. It was an impressive accomplishment. The film had a Broadway play feel to it, as there were very few sets involved.

3.9 stars

Old Guard 2

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I really enjoyed the first Old Guard movie. It was based on a cool comic book series that I also loved. I was excited about a sequel coming on Netflix. I am afraid that there was a reason that Old Guard 2, which debuted on the streamer at the beginning of July, was a film that I did not watch until December.

This was terrible. Such a gigantic step back from the exciting and original Old Guard film that it felt like a totally different franchise. I hadn’t even known this had come out until I was researching superhero movies for this year.

According to IMDB, “Andy and her team of immortal warriors continue their mission to protect humanity. This time, they have to face off against a formidable new foe who threatens the very fabric of the Old Guard, while also dealing with the return of an immortal who was thought to be long lost.”

The movie was slow, dull, and featured a group of actors just going through the motions. There was some interesting action at times, but most of them just blended together and became background noise.

The plot is weak. I am not sure what matters here. The film does not have much heart, especially when compared to the first one. It felt like it was nothing more than a place card for the next movie in the franchise, which would shock me if it ever got made.

1 star

2025 Year in Review: The Christopher Reeve Memorial Comic Book Movie of the Year

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I think this is a difficult one to give out this year, and I do think that my decision is different than I have ever done before.

There are three possible films: Thunderbolts, Superman, and Fantastic Four. I usually give this award to the superhero film that is highest on my Best Films list. That is not the situation this year. In fact, of the three, this one is my least favorite of the three. They are all awesome, but it just felt right to give this award to this certain film.

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), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

So, in 2025, The Christopher Reeve Memorial Comic Book Movie of the Year goes to….

Superman.

This film brought the character of Superman back to the big screen and did it in a way that truly paid homage to the Christopher Reeve version back in the 1978 movie.

Director James Gunn placed this new Superman smack dab in the center of his new DCU where Superman had been around for awhile. No origin story here. We all know it.

It’s not perfect, but it is the best rendition of Superman since Christopher Reeve and that is why I gave Superman this award, despite the fact that both Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four are higher up the list for me than Superman.

Jay Kelly

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This movie popped up on Netflix recently and I added it my queue. I was able to watch it this morning.

I have never been a huge George Clooney fan, but I can’t say that his presence has ever kept me from watching a movie. I can say that about his co-star Adam Sandler, who has a bunch of movies that I never watched because he was the lead. I went into this with the knowledge that Sandler has had some Oscar buzz about him so I hoped this would be more like Uncut Gems and less like Billy Madison.

According to IMDB, “Famous movie actor Jay Kelly embarks on a journey of self-discovery, confronting his past and present with his devoted manager Ron.”

I really liked this movie. I thought George Clooney did a sensational job of playing this iconic action movie star who was going through an existential crisis, and I was very impressed with the work of Adam Sandler in this film. He still was able to provide some of the best comedic lines without sacrificing character or intelligence.

Director Noah Baumbach provided a sharp satirical look at Hollywood and how the life of a movie star can be a lonely one. A couple of times, Jay Kelly’s daughter said that he was “never alone” but the film does a great job of showing how he absolutely could be, even while surrounded by his entourage. It showed, as well, the lack of understanding Jay Kelly had on his daughter’s lives.

There were some solid supporting appearances in Jay Kelly. Laura Dern, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Riley Keough, and Grace Edwards.

It does feel a touch long, but I don’t know what I would remove. There are scenes that focus in on Adam Sandler and his life and background that really develops his character that I would not remove at all.

Clooney really does make this role feel like it is something that he has lived through. I believed every thought and feeling jay had during the course of the movie. The film had some neat sequences where something was shot in a way that was original. For example, there was a scene with Jay and his daughter where they were on the phone, but the film shot it as if they were walking beside one another.

Jay Kelly was a engaging movie with some really well developed characters. I was very impressed by the film overall.

4 stars

Daily Countdown: TV Shows #4

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#4

Whose Line is it Anyway?

Improv is hard, but there are a handful of people who can do it unlike anyone else. That is the concept behind the EYG Hall of Fame show Whose Line is it Anyway?

Whose Line started in England before being brought to the states by Drew Carey, whose pull at ABC was strong. The show ran for 21 years in America, at first on ABC, and then, eventually, over at the CW, when Drew Carey was replaced by Aisha Tyler.

There were three main cast members that were on the majority of the episodes, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie and Wayne Brady. Stiles and Mochrie were regulars on the British version of the show and Brady became a series regular after season one of the American version (though he also appeared on the British show at times). There is a fourth recurring cast member, referred to as the fourth chair, which included a number of other improv comics such as Brad Sherwood, Jeff Davis, Chip Esten, Greg Proops, Keegan-Michael Key, Gary Anthony Williams, Denny Siegel, Kathy Greenwood, Jonathan Mangum, and Heather Anne Campbell. There were celebrities who appeared as the “fourth chair” including Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Stephen Colbert and Kathy Griffin.

The show featured members of the cast performing improv games read off by the host. Some of these games included Helping Hands, Whose Line, Scenes from a Hat, Three-Headed Broadway Star, Doo-Woop, African Chant, Dating Game, World’s Worst and Hoedown.

Hoedown was particularly disliked by the cast, which became a running joke on the show.

The quick-witted performers had amazing ability to come up with funny responses consistently Stiles and Mochrie had an unbelievable chemistry with each other which led them to having many scenes together.

The game “Living Scenery” was used when guest star Richard Simmons was on the show and it led to, perhaps, the funniest scene in the entire show’s run. If you have never seen this game, do yourself a favor and find it on YouTube. It is as funny as anything you’ll ever see.

Ah heck… here it is…

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #46

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Spoilers

“Screaming Meemies”

I am not sure I was ready for that.

This episode, entitled “Screaming Meemies,” which was a slang term meaning a “heightened sense of panic or anxiety,” showed us the events of the night when Hugh took the kids and left the Hill House in the middle of the night. It was all from the perspective of Olivia, whose entire life had seemingly become a dream that she could not awake from.

I had not expected for the house to have driven her as mad as it did that she would try to awaken the twins (and Luke’s not-so-imaginary friend, Abigail) by having a middle of the night, surprise tea party, with tea laced with rat poison.

Poor little Abigail saved the day, in a sense, by sipping on her poisoned tea before the twins could, and she promptly died.

Much of this had been influenced by the ghost known as Poppy Hill, who showed up at the end of episode 7 to grab adult Luke when he tried to burn the house down. This Poppy was a nasty ghost who was planting the seeds of evil in the mind of the mentally ill Olivia, leading to this act of horror.

With this bit, in the penultimate episode no less, the last thing we need to discover from the past flashbacks, would be what happened when Hugh went back to the Hill House after he dropped his kids off at the motel. I am sure that will be included in the 70+ minute finale in episode 10.

We got to see the truth behind several of the odd things we had seen previously from Olivia, like the screwdriver she held at Hugh’s neck or breaking the mirror on the vanity that Steven had fixed up for her. Everything fit in nicely as we see the descent of Olivia into this house induced madness. We also see her “suicide”, aided by the push of Poppy Hill.

I expect that next week’s big finale will deliver big time, as this show has been truly firing on all cylinders the last four-five episodes.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

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I was not a huge fan of the first Five Night’s at Freddy’s movie from a few years ago, but it was not the worst thing I had ever seen. Unfortunately, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 took a step back.

According to IMDB, “One year has passed since the supernatural nightmare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The stories about what transpired there have been twisted into a campy local legend, inspiring the town’s first ever Fazfest. Former security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) have kept the truth from Mike’s 11-year-old sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), concerning the fate of her animatronic friends. But when Abby sneaks out to reconnect with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, it will set into motion a terrifying series of events, revealing dark secrets about the true origin of Freddy’s, and unleashing a long-forgotten horror hidden away for decades.”

I did not like this one at all. It felt so forced. The story was weak. The inclusion of the animatronics was silly. The ending was poor. I just did not like much of anything about this movie.

I do have one thing that I thought looked cool and that was the look of The Marionette when combined with Charlotte. It was a really cool design and I did like that part of the film. However, all of the other robotic characters were just a waste.

I also hate when a movie provides a teacher who would just not be around in today’s world and Wayne Knight played one here. There was so much about this that did not work for me.

1.5 stars

Hamnet

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I actually did not know that this was a story featuring William Shakespeare until about 2/3rd through the movie. I knew Hamnet sounded like Hamlet, but I did not know how it was connected. In fact, as I walked into the theater, I thought to myself that I had no idea what this movie was about.

We meet Agnes and Will, who fall in love and get married. Agnes was initially believed to be the daughter of a forest witch, but that never felt like it was addressed. Agnes gets pregnant. They have a daughter and then have twins later, one of which seemed to be born dead, but survived.

As I mentioned, I had no idea this was meant to be Shakespeare and I also did not know that he had a son named Hamnet who died when he was 11, supposedly from the plague. That was believed to be one of the influences for Shakespeare to write his best tragedies, including Hamlet.

I was extremely bored through the first half of this movie. I was not enjoying it at all. However, there were two amazing performances in the heart of this film. Paul Mescal played Will and he did a great job, but the stand out performance in the film belonged to Jessie Buckley as Agnes. Even at the times when I was feeling bored with the story and the script, Jessie Buckley was bringing it hard.

I had heard that this was an Oscar possible nominated film and I was ready to rip that idea apart. There was an amazing scene with Buckley and Jacobi Jupe, who was playing Hamnet, but it still had not swayed my opinion.

Then, the ending happened. The ending was unbelievable! It absolutely took the rest of this movie and elevated it to a level that I could not believe. I came out of the film with serious feels. Most of the time, the example is the ending is bad and damaged the memory of a film. This time, I have a much more positive thought of the film because of the finale.

If Jessie Buckley does not win the Academy Award for this performance, they should just stop giving out Best Actress Awards. Jessie Buckley is sensational and totally carries the film on her back. I would have totally checked out from this had it not been for Jessie Buckley.

Oscar winner Chloe Zhao does a great job with the direction of this film. I loved the ending of this.

3.5 stars

EYG 2025 Year in Review: In Memoriam Part Two

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The second In Memoriam for the EYG Year in Review features the following:

Robert Redford

Roberta Flack

Wayne Osmond

Anita Bryant

Chris Robinson

Connie Francis

Dawn Little Sky

Denise Alexander

Leslie Charleston

Brenton Wood

Garth Hudson

Bobby Jenks

Irv Gotti

Udo Kier

Georgio Armani

Danny Seagren

June Lockhart

Jellybean Johnson

Tristian Rogers

Tom Lehrer

Terrance Stamp

Jane Goodall

Malcolm Jamal Warner

Marshawn Kneeland

Peter Yarrow

Rick Derringer

Steve “Mongo” McMichael

RIP to all

Daily Countdown #5

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#5

Picket Fences

David E. Kelley has had a couple of other shows on this list. Picket Fences is my absolutely favorite one of his oeuvre.

A little town called Rome, Wisconsin was home to all sorts of weirdness. I have been a fan of the genre of show that feature a strange, eccentric town full of bizarre things (from Eerie, Indiana to Twin Peaks). Rome is certainly in the mix.

The family at the center of this weird town is the Brocks, including Sheriff Jimmy Brock and his wife Doctor Jill Brock. Jimmy’s daughter from his first marriage, Kimberly, and Jill’s two sons, Matthew and Zach, were part of the family too.

Much of the action took place inside the Rome Court House, where Judge Henry Bone oversaw the court. One of my favorite characters of all time was the defense attorney for just about anyone… Douglas Wambaugh! “Wambaugh for the Potato man,” “Wambaugh for the steamroller, your honor.” Douglas Wambaugh was as bombastic as humanly possible, played with perfect precision by Emmy Award winning Fyvush Finkel. The combative relationship between Wambaugh and Judge Bone was one of the most original and entertaining relationships on TV.

Picket Fences was also where I was introduced to Don Cheadle, who played D.A. John Littleton. Cheadle went on to a successful movie career, including replacing James Rhodes in the MCU.

Some of the most amazing plot lines happened on Picket Fences, and somehow, they all seemed to have major impact on the Brock family. Any holiday where the Brocks gathered for a dinner was destined to turn into fireworks. Thanksgiving? Hold on to your hat.

Jimmy and Jill loved each other but they were never afraid to throwdown if the story called for it.

Some of the major events in Rome included the capture of the Green Bay Chopper, the arrival of serial killer Cupid, a mayor who was arrested for murdering the guy who carjacked him and then. before going to prison, spontaneously combusted, a woman who flattened her husband with a steamroller and blamed it on PMS, the iconic Dancing Bandit who eventually became Rome’s mayor (not the one that spontaneously combusted), and a town where one of the most dangerous appliances was the human sized icebox.

These are just some of the stories that populated this wonderful town.

Picket Fences ran for four seasons and wound up winning 14 Emmy Awards in that run, including Outstanding Drama Series twice.

Cast members included Tom Skerritt, Kathy Baker, Fyvush Finkel, Ray Walston, Don Cheadle, Holly Marie Combs, Costas Mandylor, Kelly Connell, Zelda Rubenstein, Adam Wylie, Justin Shenkarow, Lauren Holly, Marlee Matlin, Ray Dotrice, Leigh Taylor-Young, Roy Brocksmith, and Robert Cornthwaite.

As Judge Bone would so nimbly put it at the end of a case, “Now get out.”

2025 EYG Year in Review: Don’t Feed the Trolls Award

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We just had the Confirmed.. or is it? Award, which dealt with the Internet getting fooled. Now, we have the internet getting mad.

This happens daily.

Things cause so much rage-bait on the internet all the time. So this award is here to offer up the Insane Internet Rage Scandal of the Year… known as The Don’t Feed the Trolls Award!

The Don’t Feed the Trolls: Insane Internet Rage Scandal of the Year

Previous Winner:  Baby Yoda eats frog’s eggs (2020), Masters of the Universe: Revelations part one (2021), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022), Twitter becomes X (2023), Trump (2024)

This year had a couple of runners-up. They were: Snow White and the CGI dwarves and Brock Lesnar’s return to the WWE.

But this year’s winner….

Superman (2025) is too woke!

Complaints about the new Superman movie went everywhere online. James Gunn dared to call this an immigrant tale and all the right wing haters came from everywhere to dump on this movie.

There are other haters, such as those who believe that Superman should not be covering his face (picture above). So much anger directed toward this film and there was too much joy from some when Superman did not make the amount of money they thought it should have.

Many believed that they made this too political (hey there Dean Cain) and had taken away his patriot symbol (“Truth, Justice, and the Human Way”… not American way???). It was all just noise to distract.

Superman was a great movie and any one claiming it was too woke… well, they do not have to watch it.