Week of January 10th
This week’s comic cover of the week is also my favorite issue of the week because it is one of the most creative and original comic I have seen in a long time.
Swan Song #6
Cover art by Martin Morazzo
This is the final issue of this six-issue mini-series.
The cover itself, as well as the issue, is a parody of Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends poetry book and was a crossover with Ice Cream Man.
I was a big fan of the two seasons of Schmigadoon on Apple TV +. I came on it late, but binged the two seasons quickly, really enjoying the set-up and the parody of the musical genre. I had not seen the film that Schmigadoon was originally parodying, but this morning, that changed as I watched 1954’s Brigadoon starring Gene Kelly and Van Johnson.
Two men went to Scotland to go grouse shooting, but they stumbled from out of the mist into a mysterious village called Brigadoon.
Gene Kelly is very charismatic and his singing and dancing is, again, top notch. Van Johnson played the more grumpy of the two.
There are few songs that I recognized from the film. The one that I had heard before was “Almost Like Being in Love.”
The film is romantic and lovely. Good music and good choreography. The storytelling is solid.
Spoilers
Everybody thought this series was going to be an utter mess. They said that Disney was dropping the episodes all in one day because they just wanted to get it done with and past it. Echo was supposed to be a waste of time.
This turned out to be an excellent five episode show.
I was not a fan of the character of Echo in the Hawkeye series. She was probably the weakest point of that series and felt almost added in.
This show does a sensational job of taking some of the Maya scenes from the Hawkeye and blending them into the series, particularly the first episode. The tone of these scenes felt completely different and worked in the surrounding sections.
I liked the progression of Maya and her character. She was cold at the beginning and as she slowly accepted her Choctaw Nation generations. Alaqua Cox did a fabulous job as Maya Lopez, unable to speak, but still using facial features and body language to provide an understanding of the character.
The supporting characters in this show are very interesting and are some of the best written characters. Maya’s childhood friend Bonnie, her grandparents Skully (played by the wonderful Graham Greene) and Chula, her cousin Biscuits and his dog Billy Jack, her friend Henry and, of course, her ‘uncle’ Wilson Fisk.
Vincent D’Onofrio returned to form as Kingpin. He is always so great as this character. Lots of people hated his Wilson Fisk from the Hawkeye series, but I did not mind it. It was not as good as his appearances in the Daredevil Netflix series, but characters can be different. Here, he is closer to the way he was in that Netflix series. The connection of Kingpin and Maya was a major piece of the show.
The Echo series took a lot of criticism for dropping the shows all at once, but this feels as if the show was designed to be binged and it works that way.
This also makes the Netflix Daredevil series MCU cannon, which has been questionable over the years. They go right into the Wilson Fisk backstory with his father (how he bludgeoned him to death with a hammer). Oh and the first episode fight with Daredevil was spectacular.
I will say that I feel as if the final episode was a little rushed. I did like how the Maya-Fisk relationship ends up resolving. I’m not sure if I liked how the ‘Echo gives the others power too to fight’ because it seemed to be kind of add.
However, for the five episode series, I think Echo is an excellent series and was better than I thought it was going to be.
Spoilers
“A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”
As a fan of the WWE, I was looking forward to seeing Adam Copeland, a former WWE wrestler under the name of Edge, appear on tonight’s Percy Jackson episode on Disney +. Copeland was playing God of War Ares on the show. He did a great job providing Ares with some quirky traits.
However, Percy and Annabeth went on a side adventure to recover Ares’s shield as the God of War kept Grover as insurance.
Grover showed he was smarter than Ares as he was able to suss out (at least, according to the cliffhanger) who it was that stole the master bolt. I guess that Grover will let us in on the secret next week.
Percy and Annabeth are really bonding, much more than either of them expected.
They found themselves in an amusement park created by Hephaestus. There was a trap that Percy had to trigger in order to get the shield, but Annabeth would not give up on him and talked Hephaestus into freeing Percy.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians has been a consistently good show every week, with a cast of charming and engaging young actors and some fun appearances by Olympians. It looked like the previews for next week has Lin-Manuel Miranda showing up as Hermes.
The quest continues in Vegas!
Spoilers
“Fearful Symmetry”
Invisible elephants? Invisible tiger?
Mulder and Scully investigate a zoo where some weird things are going on. Mulder believes that the animals of the zoo are being abducted by aliens and artificially inseminated, having the babies taken for some reason.
The action centers around a gorilla named Sophie, who could communicate via sign language and was scared of the light.
This was quite a tragic episode with a lot of animal death and discussion of mistreatment.
Not sure why the animals were invisible. Overall the episode was below average.
Spoilers
“Forget Selma”
“To Forgive is Divine”
“Liver Let Die”
These three episodes were, in continuity, supposed to be shown before episode 18, “3 Weddings and a Meltdown,” and the fact that they were shown after it did affect the enjoyment of the episodes, especially episode 22, which dealt with a potential cancer scare for Jimmy, but since we know in episode 18, we know Jimmy is fine, it removed any level of question about the diagnosis.
In “Forget Selma,” we saw how Douglas and nuMiriam Wambaugh reunited, and it was one of the worst episodes of the series. It started decent, with Douglas being very jealous over nuMiriam and her new “bridge” partner, a retired stock broker played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Unfortunately, this fell hard in the second and third acts. The whole showdown at nuMiriam’s house was just ridiculous. It felt like a scene out of a conclusion of Moonlighting but without the witty comments of Dave and Maddie.
The second of these episodes included a rape of an Amish woman, and the subsequent case that led to. The Amish Council of Elders had decided that she would not press charges or testify against her rapist because their religion insisted on forgiveness.
There were a bunch of familiar faces in this episode. Kelli Williams, one of the stars of David E. Kelley’s courtroom drama The Practice, was the victimized Amish girl Hannah and Alyson Hannigan (Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was another victim of the rapist.
The final release order show was the aforementioned cancer scare for Jimmy. This was a very effective episode which would have been so much more if I did not know that Jimmy made it through. It also made the split between Jimmy and Jill in the finale (E18) make even less sense than it did at the time. After surviving this cancer scare, how does crazy Jill continue to do what she does in the finale?
Crazy Jill storyline is easily the worst storyline in the entire run of the show as it took the character and warped her into something was unrecognizable.
Episode 22 was one of the best ones of the fourth season.
However, Maxine was missing in all of these episodes so it still made no sense when she and Kenny started out the finale in bed together.
Season four was definitely missing a lot and was far lower than the first three seasons. Still, Picket Fences is one of my favorite shows of all time and I am very pleased that I got a chance to do this rewatch for EYG.
Since I have started the Genre-ary DailyView, it has given me the opportunity to see some classic musicals that I probably wouldn’t have watched several of these films. Oliver! is a good example of this.
Oliver! from 1968 was an Oscar winning movie based on a stage musical which was based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. Carol Reed won an Academy Award for Best Director and the picture received the Best Picture Oscar.
An orphan named Oliver (Mark Lester) wound up under the influence of a street criminal named Fagin (Ron Moody), who added Oliver to his troop of street urchin pickpockets, which included the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). One of Fagin’s accomplices, Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed), showed a more violent and cruel nature.
It is fun to hear songs that I recognize, but never knew where they originated from. Songs such as “Consider Yourself,” “Food, Glorious Food,” and “As Long as He Needs Me” are songs that I knew prior to watching this film.
Our villains of the story were excellent. The character of Fagin was one of the best movie villains around, deep and developed, and Sikes was sinister and scary.
Mark Lester does a solid job as the young Oliver. He holds his own with all of the actors around him.
Clearly this is a classic and you can understand why it won six Oscars.
Today’s Genre-ary DailyView has put me in a joyous mood. I had such a blast with this film on Netflix from 2012. Eric Idle of Monty Python fame brought together a crew of amazing comedic actors from the British Isles for a one of a kind comedy event.
The crew presented a story in the manner of a radio play, on stage in front of a live audience, reading, singing and performing with a script in hand and sound effects from behind. As one would come to expect from a Python alum, the writing of the play is sharp and witty, filled with a ton of double entendres. Historically, I have not been a fan of this type of humor, but when it is as well written and clever as this, well, it works extremely well.
The cast is spectacular. It included Eric Idle, Eddie Izzard, Tim Curry, Billy Connolly, Russell Brand, Jane Leeves, Tracey Ullman, Jim Piddock and Sophie Winkleman. Seeing these amazing performers playing multiple characters and desperately trying to keep from laughing was some of the most enjoyable aspects of it. Billy Connolly was on the verge of losing it seemingly every time he started speaking.
According to IMDB, “This movie begins with the birth of a sex toy invented in Shagistan in 1898 by Deepak Obi Ben Kingsley (Eddie Izzard), and tells the story of the subsequent decline of the British Empire as seen through the eyes of a Piano (Eric Idle). The Piano narrates the tale of Dick (Russell Brand); his two cousins: Emma Schlegel (Jane Leeves), an emotionally retarded English girl; her kleptomaniac sister Helena (Sophie Winkleman) and their dipsomaniac Aunt Maggie (Tracey Ullman) who all live together in a large, rambling, Edwardian novel. When the Reverend Whoopsie (Tim Curry) discovers a piano on a beach, a plot is set afoot that can be solved only by a private Dick, the incomprehensible Scottish sleuth Inspector McGuffin (Sir Billy Connolly), who, with the aid of Sergeant Ken Russell (Jim Piddock) finally reveals the identity of the Houndsditch Mutilator.”
Tracey Ullman is brilliant in this play. Tim Curry is always a joy. Billy Connolly is amazing with his Scottish dialect. The entire cast does a sensational job voice acting, with knowing looks and glances at the camera on the stage show.
Without the Genre-ary, I would have never watched this film, and I would have missed out on one of the most engaging and enjoyable 86 minutes I have seen in a long time. This was a wondrous piece of entertainment.
Since we am preparing for a big snowstorm in the early part of the week, I thought that it would be a good night to watch the new international film, Society of the Snow. I certainly do hope we do not have to deal with any of the struggles portrayed in this film.
According to IMDB, “In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident. Trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, they have to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.“
Director J.A. Bayona brought a visceral film that showed the determination of human nature and what people will do in order to survive. Some of the things that are shown here are difficult to view, but understandable in the situation.
The plane crash was sensationally shot. It was intense from the first shudder of the plane to the plane coming to an end in the middle of the Andes Mountains.
As the victims began increasing, the struggles did not stop. I literally gasped at the avalanche that buried the crew. It was like… what else can these people face?
The film does an admirable job of showing the psychological horrors that these people suffered during their time stranded in the Andes. The large cast was all given moments to shine and to show who their characters were and what made them distinct individuals.
Society of the Snow is currently streaming on Netflix.
4.5 stars
Spoilers
“Winner Takes All”
The crazy Jill storyline continued this episode. She becomes a basketball coach and drives the children to the point where they hire Wambaugh to sue their parents to stay away from the games.
As a former coach, this episode pushed a lot of buttons for me. The know-it-all parents are a major issue in youth sports competition and there is a problem that you see all over the place.
It is kind of weird watching this episode after the finale from episode 18.
There was a sub-story where Matthew got involved in gambling. Kenny stepped up big time in this side story.
Best part of the episode was the end song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” performed by Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole.
I also enjoyed the story told by Dr. Joey about her own past with her mother and figure staking. Amy Aquino delivered that monologue extremely well.
The worse part of the crazy Jill story is that there is no real reason behind it. It just shows her own character.
Spoilers
“Blonde on Blonde”
The soap opera section of Moonlighting started with this episode.
It also revealed another one of my least favorite TV characters of all time. Sam Crawford, played by Mark Harmon. When Mark Harmon suddenly was standing in Maddie’s doorway, blocking David from finally telling Maddie how he felt, he cemented his place among the most despised characters around.
Mark Harmon was a top notch actor and was playing a character who, by all accounts, was a wonderful person, but he the definition of wrong-place-wrong-time.
This also started, in my mind, the eventual downfall of Moonlighting. When the show turned from a romantic comedy investigating cases with Dave and Maddie verbally sparring into this example where they were separated, not working together and focused more on the darker side of their relationship, is when the show started a downturn. Sure the ratings would be high for these episodes and Mark Harmon had created quite a buzz with his shocking appearance, but they started to lose something that made the show what it was.
You saw the elevation of Herbert Viola to sidekick status instead of DiPesto love interest and that was another misstep.
Spoilers
“Colony”
“End Game”
A two part episode that brought the mystery of the disappearance of Samantha Mulder back to the forefront, and gave us another of the recurring villains, an alien, shape shifting bounty hunter with blood that is dangerously corrosive to humans.
The use of Samantha Mulder was done extremely well in this episode, although to be honest the future use of the mystery of her disappearance becomes one of the most overused aspects of the series. I am not sure if the creators of the X-Files actually know what had happened to Samantha and they just wrote that she disappeared and decided they would answer it at some point, not knowing the truth.
We met Fox’s mother and father in the episodes and the father was definitely a questionable guy. He felt fairly withdrawn from his son (something we learn more about later in the series).
The confrontation between Skinner and X is the elevator during “End Game” gave us some real insights into both of these men, especially Skinner, who had been painted as a questionable agent, someone that could not be trusted. This showed that he may be more than what he had seemed before.
Mulder and Scully prove that they are better together than they are separately. I did feel like I have seen Scully kidnapped and in danger from the villains too much during this season. I did like how Scully came into the hospital at the end of the episode and basically saved Mulder’s life with her take charge attitude, not taking any crap from the doctor on duty.
This two-parter was really strong and was a solid pair of episodes in the mythology of the show.
This morning for the EYG Genre-ary DailyView, I went to Prime and found yet another long, but classic musical, one with several well known songs, including one that I happen to have on my phone.
Fiddler on the Roof is a well known musical written by Joseph Stein. It was turned into a movie in 1971. It tells the story of a family of Jewish people living in a pre-revolutionary Russian village. Tevye (Topol) is a poor milkman who lives with his family in a Ukrainian village of Anatevka. He went about his life, following traditions and hoping to find matches for his five daughters.
Tevye struggled with the changing world and his daughters’ choices that went against his long standing beliefs.
Tevye spoke to the camera, being his own narrator through much of the movie.
There are plenty of classic songs in the film including “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “Sunrise, Sunset.”
The cast included Paul Michael Glaser (from Starsky & Hutch), Leonard Frey (who received an Academy Award nomination), Norma Crane, Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, Neva Small, Paul Mann, and Molly Picon.
There is not a clear throughline of a plot, focusing basically on Tevye’s family. There are a lot of Jewish culture and traditions shown in the film and it was fascinating to see how a different group of people live their lives.
Spoilers
“Blanket”
Sheriff Roy Tillman is absolutely spiraling out of control.
He is completely unhinged.
And the confrontations with Tillman and Dorothy were totally intense. I want more.
Poor Dorothy is so strong, but you can see the doubts and the anguish she is suffering. The fight scene between them was off the charts. I was so rooting for Dorothy.
Graves had set up the sheriff’s debate and that made Tillman look like a crazy man, which was just what Graves wanted. Of course, Graves wanted to negotiate with Tillman, but Tillman had his own negotiating technique in mind. He shot and killed him.
We also got confirmation that Tillman had killed Linda and buried her.
It amazes me that there are two more episodes left. This made me feel as if it were a penultimate episode. This episode was so great. I really do love Dorothy and Tillman is one of the best villains you are going to find anywhere.
Spoilers
“Axis Mundi”
Episode nine had the least shocking twist of the whole season. One that we all saw coming. Cate, who is lost in the Hollow Earth, was saved from a rampaging titan by a woman with a bow and arrow. The woman was, of course, Dr. Keiko Miura, who we thought had died back in 1954 when she got pulled down by those bug-like creatures.
Well, honestly, who really thought she was dead?
We learned a lot about Shaw’s past in Hollow Earth and why he is so spry for a 90 year old guy. Wyatt Russell does a great job in these scenes.
The scenes between characters are the best scenes of this episode. The scene with Kentaro and his father were probably the best scene that Kentaro has had in the show.
Kurt Russell’s Shaw and May found each other in Hollow Earth after last episode’s mess and they tried to find Cate. May seemed more worried about Cate than just a friend.
Everything is being set up here in this penultimate episode for the season finale next week.
