Author Archives: Doc

Daily Countdown: Animated Movies #48

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#48

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Released: June 15, 2001

Runtime: 95 minutes

Rating: PG

Animation Style: Combines traditional 2D hand-drawn animation with 3D computer-generated vehicles, machinery, and crystal energy effects

Studio: Disney

One of the most underrated Disney movie of all time. Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a classic, with animation features a distinct graphic style heavily inspired by comic book artist Mike Mignola.

Voice cast: Michael J. Fox, James Garner, Cree Summer, Don Novello, Phil Morris, Claudia Christian, Jacqueline Obradors, Florence Stanley, David Ogden Stiers, John Mahoney, Jim Varney, Corey Burton and Leonard Nimoy

Daily Countdown: Animated Movies #49

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#49

Meet the Robinsons

Released: March 30, 2007

Runtime: 95 minutes

Rating: G

Animation Style: stylized, caricature-heavy 3D CG

Studio: Disney

Meet the Robinsons is one of those fun, comedic films that kind of gets lost. Has one of my absolutely fsvorite sight gags with the T-Rex involved in the chase stopping to be upset over his short arms.

Voice cast: Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Laurie Metcalf, Nicole Sullivan, Adam West, Ethan Sandler, Tom Kenny, Don Hall, Paul Butcher, Aurian Redson, Joe Mateo, and Stephen Anderson.

Boston Legal S1 E10, E11, E12

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“Hired Guns”

“Schmidt Happens”

“From Whence We Came”

One of my favorite quotes from Boston Legal happened in episode 11. It is a thought have many times in the restroom…

“I keep an extremely clean penis“

Alan Shore is in response to a woman who had entered the men’s restroom and had introduced herself, while Alan was at the urinal. He extended a hand to shake and she said that he is going to wash that.

Hence, the clean penis comment from Alan.

That woman was Shirley Schmidt, named partner in Crane, Poole & Schmidt, played brilliantly by Candice Bergen. Shirley Schmidt becomes one of my absolute favorite characters on this show over the next four and a half years. This was her first appearance and Candice Bergen immediately was placed as a powerhouse, keeping Denny Crane off balance.

In “Head Games,” Alan winds up getting held at gunpoint by a disgruntled father who had recently lost his children because of Alan. Yes, the father would take his children without permission to Peru over Christmas. The mother asked for help from Alan. I mean… it is kidnapping.

This whole situation led to another classic moment of the series. Denny Crane using his rifle to shoot the father. Denny had the gun in his desk and had Tara open the door when he yelled “Pull!” As Denny said, he was a Marine, “trained as a sniper… or was it a pilot?”

We also get the debut in episode 11 of Bernard Ferrion, a small man who killed his mother by hitting her on the head with a skillet. Alan was able to free Bernard on a technicality, and then gave him a kindly speech about being good. Then next episode, Bernard is back after killing his neighbor with a skillet as well. Alan was disappointed, and sent Bernard to Tara.

Bernard is a surprisingly complex character for the short arc that he appeared. You could tell how lonely he was, and how he had a kind heart, despite being, as Alan called him, evil.

Betty White arrived as Alan’s new assistant, Catherine Piper. White had played this role on The Practice and had come in contact with Alan then. Seeing her resume this role was an awesome thing.

The arrival of Shirley put a charge into this show and gave the show a foil to Denny that was every bit as formidable as he was. Certainly, she was more capable of standing up to Denny than Paul was. All Shirley had to do was whisper those two little words… “Denny Crane” and Denny would shiver.

Daily Countdown: Animated Movies #50

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#50

Moana

Released: November 23, 2016

Runtime: 107 minutes

Rating: PG

Animation Style: 3D computer-animated style

Studio: Disney

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me.

The original Moana was a wonderful, breath of fresh air and it featured some of the best music, written by EYG Hall of Famer Lin-manuel Miranda. The song How Far I’ll Go is a masterpiece. The sequel and live action remake could not recapture the magic of this film.

Voice Cast:  Dwayne Johnson, Auliʻi Cravalho, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk, Oscar Kightley, Troy Polamalu, and Puanani Cravalho.

Rick and Morty S9 E10

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“Field of Dreams”

I am now caught up on the Rick and Morty series, finishing up with the episode 10 that debuted on HBO Max today, but had been shown on Comedy Central earlier in the summer.

The new episode started off as an enjoyable story of Morty going through the multiverse and attending other Morty’s funeral. Morty is discovered as he was watching the funeral by a family that was grieving “Mort,” the kid who was so much more successful and loved by his family.

Morty started spending time with this family, thinking that they were better than the family he had. Morty found out that this Smith family was extremely crazed and chasing after him to replace their Mort.

Morty went to this universe’s Rick, who had stopped drinking, had gotten married, and was living a happy life as a college professor. This was when the episode took a darker turn that I was not a real fan of.

As Rick was trying to help find a way to get Morty home, I knew what was going to happen. I knew that Rick was going to need to go back to drinking to get the work done. Watching Rick throw away his life, his sobriety, his wife to the bottle was so sad and too predictable. I wanted this Rick to not transform into yet another drunken Rick.

Of course the ending was anything but predictable as the whole family is butchered in their final confrontation. This allowed Morty to get back to his regular universe with a happier feeling toward these people.

The whole motorcycle scene at the end of the episode was odd.

Overall, this was an up and down episode for me, and with different shades of dark, it did not do well for me.

There is a season 10 in works right now with a rumored release during the summer of 2027.

Daily Countdown: Animated Movies #51

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#51

Castle in the Sky

Released: August 2, 1986

Runtime: 124 minutes

Rating: PG

Animation Style: traditional hand-drawn cel animation style paired with rich, hand-painted watercolor and gouache backgrounds

Studio: Studio Ghibli

Voice cast: James Van Der Beek, Anna Paquin, Cloris Leachman, Mark Hamill, Jim Cummings, Richard Dysart, John Hostetter, Michael McShane, Andy Dick, Mandy Patinkin, Tress MacNeille, and Debi Derryberry.

Lanterns S1 E1

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“Pilot”

The first episode of DC Studio’s latest TV show premiered on HBO Max this Sunday night. Lanterns started off with Hal Jordan training John Stewart as his replacement.

We start the story in 2016, with a gruff Hal Jordan being very tough on his trainee, John Stewart.

The show ended in 2026 with Hal Jordan dead on the bleachers of a football field.

There had been rumors about Hal Jordan dying at the end of the pilot, but with the 2016 story going on, this is how we will get a full season of Hal alive and John moving forward.

Of course, there will be some story in 2026 too since the dead body of Hal nor John had the Lantern ring. Where is it? Who took it? Who killed Hal? These points I expect will correspond to the storyline from 2016.

I do like shows that play with the manner in which the narrative is presented. Of course, LOST is the immediate show to come to mind, and former LOST writer Damon Lindelof is a writer and executive producer on the show. That always could hook me.

I have enjoyed Green Lantern as a character, despite not collecting his comic title. I think the way this show has been set up, kind of a True Detective-style show, with this mystery of what is going on in this little town in Nebraska where Hal Jordan originally received the ring was some solid writing.

I found Kyle Chandler to be excellent as an older, grumpier Hal Jordan, who was training his replacement John Stewart despite not wanting to have a replacement. Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, was good, but I do not think he had the amount of material by comparison yet. Pierre is a solid actor and I think he will get better as the series goes on.

I am invested in the mystery that has been set up and the ending with Hal’s death only served to increase the interest I have in this series. I expect to be watching this every Sunday night until October.

Boston Legal S1 E7, E8, E9

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“Questionable Characters”

“Loose Lips”

“A Greater Good”

I watched episodes 7, 8, & 9 of Boston Legal tonight. They fell around the Christmas holiday as there were some background mentions of Christmas, including a crossdressing mall Santa that had been fired.

There were several questionable lawyering tactics used by the lawyers at Crane, Poole & Schmidt. And it was not just Alan Shore. In fact, it seemed that most of the lawyers on the show were influenced by Alan’s iffy choices. Some examples:

  • Lori pretended to be a therapist to meet with a client who verbally made threats to murder his wife to his therapist.
  • Denny went ahead and outed a whistleblower on the stand after Paul Lewiston specifically told Alan not to do it.
  • Tara approached another attorney on a case and pretended to be a flight attendant to get info on the case.
  • Brad, very jealous of Alan, made a wager on a case with Alan and then tried to manipulate the outcome by getting a unfavorable judge assigned to it.
  • Even Paul Lewiston turned a blind eye on Lori’s trouble which led to the wife, fearful for her life, shoot and kill her husband, who used the therapist to get out the bad thoughts only and had no intention of ever following through with it.

Meanwhile, Alan is just trying to do the right things for his clients, albeit by some methods that should not be done. Paul actually recommended a couple of times for other lawyers to approach Alan because he knew of ways to get things done.

Jon Bernthal appeared as a friend of Lori’s who wound up getting shot in the shoulder when he tried to hold up a convenience store. They were able to convince a judge that Bernthal had the right to not allow the doctors to take the bullet out. The bullet was the only evidence they had against him. Tara got info from Alan about a doctor (working as a vet) who could take out the bullet without giving it over to the police.

These three episodes were all good, but maybe not as awesome as some of the others. Next episode looked like a banger.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #82

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Black Bird

“We are Coming, Father Abraham”

Episode two of Black Bird on Apple TV + is the next step on the Sunday Morning Sidewalk.

The thing that sticks out to me most in this episode is the manner in which they tell this story in different time frames, and how they all kind of come together by the end of episode two. There were flashbacks back to Greg Kinnear investigating as Brian Miller, tying to get Larry Hall, played by Paul Walter Hauser, to confess to the killing. By the end of the episode, Larry is in jail and staring across to James Keene, played by Taron Egerton, in another cell.

Interestingly enough, my guess is that we will not have any more flashback sections of the story since it was used just to show how this all was set up. I might be wrong on that, but that is the way it feels.

The whole confession scene with Larry was haunting. Paul Walter Hauser does an amazing job here as he is able to maintain the slight uncertainty about this character. I can see why the people in Larry’s life believed in him.

Things are ready to move forward hard now.

Daily Countdown: Animated Series #52

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#52

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Released: July 27, 2010

Runtime: 75 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Animation Style: 2D traditional anime-influenced style

Studio: Warner Brothers and The Answer Studio

The DC Animation has had its moments as some of the best straight to video films ever and this takes a classic comic storyline and put it on the screen.

Voice cast:  Bruce Greenwood, Jensen Ackles, John DiMaggio, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Isaacs, Wade Williams, Jim Piddock, Gary Cole, Carlos Alazraqui, Robert Clotworthy, Brian George, Kelly Hu, Phil LaMarr, Kevin Michael Richardson, Dwight Schultz, Fred Tatasciore, and Bruce Timm.

Muppet Show S2 E13, E14, E15

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Guest Star: Rudolf Nureyev

Guest Star: Elton John

Guest Star: Lou Rawls

Three guest stars who could handle the entertainment section of the show. While Rudolf Nureyev may not have been the singer in comparison, he did do some great dance routine. As I have said before, the Muppet Show would use some classic culture or high brow stuff. In this episode alone, they had a couple of ballet routines and jokes about Shakespeare.

However, you can also tell when they have a huge musician on. Elton John did four songs. This would have been my introduction to Crocodile Rock. Elton John also did Benny and the Jets and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and sang Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with Miss Piggy.

Elton John worked out great since he was basically a Muppet himself. He displayed such a wardrobe on this episode.

Sam the Eagle was very active in the first two episodes as he was so excited about Rudolf Nureyev bringing culture to the show only to be disappointed by him (I mean… Swine Lake? Can you blame Sam?). Sam also was not sure about Elton John’s attire.

The Elton John episode included a running gag with the Swedish Chef and a chicken. Chef was chasing the chicken with a hatchet. Then, the tables turned and Chef was being chased by the chicken.

I did not recognize many of the song done by Lou Rawls, but his jazz scat with the Electric Mayhem was truly epic. He did have a remarkable voice.

In that third episode, Fozzie was going to do an act on roller skates. It was a running joke throughout as he rolled uncontrollably around backstage.

Silo S3 E7

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“Radio”

Lukas and Kennedy went out of the silo and attempted to go to Silo 17. They did not make it. However, the surprise was that they were apparently shot. At the end of the episode, it sounded as if Lukas and Kennedy survived and reported that he had the kids that he went to retrieve. That still makes me question the entire thing. It sure sounded like bullets (probably from drones) when Lukas and Kennedy lost contact.

Because of this apparent failure of this mission, there was an attempt to blow up judicial in a way to try and stop the poison gas. Juliette struggled with the decision as she realized that whatever plan she decided upon would lead to death for hundreds of people.

Everything got called off when we discovered that Lukas and Kennedy were not dead (or so we think).

There was some big developments between Sims and Camille as they had a huge conflict about Sims’s actions. Camille is feeling the pressures of leading the IT. The Algorithm seemed to be manipulating her too.

Then we see the creation of the silos from the flashback time. We discovered that billionaire Per Stensen is behind the construction of the silos in Georgia.

Things are getting wilder as the the season is on its way to a conclusion.