This is something that is being used so much more lately. De-Aging and/or Deep Fakes are commonplace any more in the world of entertainment. This award is for the best of those…
The Kurt Russell EGO De-Aging Award
Previous Winners: Robert DeNiro (The Irishman), Mark Hamill (The Mandalorian), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things season 4), Samuel L. Jackson (Secret Invasion), Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (Here)
The Runners-Up: Sarah Michelle Geller (I Know What You Did Last Summer), Noah Schnapp (Stranger Things 5), Brad Pitt (F1), Ian McShane (Ballerina), Anjelica Huston (Ballerina), Gabriel Byrne (Ballerina)
And this year’s winner of the Kurt Russell EGO De-Aging Award is…
The Secrets We Bury is a documentary streaming on HBO Max recently dealing with the disappearance of George Carroll.
According to IMDB, “In the early 1960s, George Carroll walked out on his family, leaving his wife, Dorothy, and their four children behind. Decades later, the Carroll siblings are still left haunted by what happened to their father. Seeking much-needed closure for himself and his family, ‘The Secrets We Bury’ follows Mike Carroll as he unravels the mystery of his father’s disappearance and uncovers a story much darker and more complex than his family could have imagined. Told through extensive sit-down interviews with the Carroll siblings and layered with intimate archival footage of the Carroll family spanning decades of their lives, the documentary offers a sensitive look into one family’s journey to find closure. Part mystery and part family drama, ‘The Secrets We Bury’ raises important questions about whose stories we choose to believe, and why.”
This was a slow burn of a documentary that had a wild story involving abuse, disappearances, psychics and murder.
There are beats in this doc that are difficult to believe, making one think that there is a part of this story that is not being told to us accurately. In particular, the psychic who, apparently, was able to direct Mike where to look for his father.
The documentary spent a bunch of time in this story telling us how Mike’s mother could not have been involved with this cover up, how that she believed the story that she told them, about George abandoning them. I think this is the biggest error of the doc. There is no way that I don’t believe that she had, at the very least, the knowledge of what had happened to George, if not participated in it. They did a lot to try and make it seem like she was an innocent, even going as far as to showing us a reading by the psychic where the mother supposedly said as much. Nope. I don’t buy that at all.
This was a intriguing case that will never truly be solved. It was a mysterious and thrilling story.
The movie Hedda was available on Amazon Prime for a while now. It has been on my queue and I have been waiting to watch it. Today, I was able to fit it into the schedule.
According to IMDB, “In a provocative, modern re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, Heather (Tessa Thompson) finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt-pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.“
I have to say that I had a hard time focusing on this movie. It did not grab my attention in the first part of the film.
When I was interested in the film, it was when either Tess Thompson or Nina Hoss were on the screen. Both actors were tremendous with their characters.
There were some powerful scenes in the film, but I just never could get into it. I wish that I was able to focus on the film more. Maybe if I had seen this in a theater, I would have been able to focus in on it better than I did at home.
Because I couldn’t, it is hard to recommend the movie. Two great performances though.
This was a big year for comic books. DC was Absolute while Marvel was Ultimate. Independent books came from all sorts of companies from Mad Cave to Dynamite to Oni Press to Bad Idea. Blind Bags were the hot item once again, at least when Mark Spears covers were the prize. Not so much with Turtles. Doom took over the Marvel Universe. Darkseid prepared to return to the DC Universe. Batman and Deadpool teamed up…twice. Thor died and came back as a mortal. The X-Men found themselves in another alternate future. The Justice League let everyone in. Three men escaped from Alcatraz. The Hulk became Infernal, Dr. Strange an Asgardian, and Tony Stark insurgent. Universal Monsters were all over Image. A priest is marked for death in Ordained. Miss Fury teamed up with Green Hornet, and then she teamed up with Red Sonja, Vampirella and Dejah Thoris. We had Godzilla, zombies and vampires. Storm became an Avenger. Transformers and G.I. Joe were a thing.
And that was just a taste.
Here are the awards given to comics over the last year.
Best Marvel Comic: Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell
Best DC Comic: (TIE) Absolute Batman; Black Canary: Best of the Best
Best Independent Comics: Exquisite Corpses, No Man’s Land, Feral, Wild Animals, and Out of Alcatraz
Most Stylistic Comic: News From the Fallout
Best Character: Absolute Batman
Best Rebooted Cartoon Character: Blue Falcon & Dynomutt
Best Writer: (TIE) James Tynion IV; Ryan North
Best Artist: Szymon Kudranski
Best Cover Artist: Mark Spears
Best Graphic Novel: The Knives by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Best #1: Wild Animals #1
Best Surprise: Doug Ramsey is Revelation
Under Appreciated: Pinupocalypse
Best Vampire Series: Vatican City
Best One Shot: Ice Cream Man: The Mortal Coil Shuffle (story in a deck of cards)
Best X-Book: Uncanny X-Men
Best Imprint: Ghost Machine (from Image)
BiggestOopsie of the Year: Red Hood #1 (When a regular series suddenly becomes a one-shot)
Best Anthology Series: Assorted Crisis Events
Crossover of the Year: Batman/Deadpool
Trend of the Year: Anthology comics (horror, sci-fi, Twilight Zone etc.)
Comic Character 2025 MVPs: Absolute Batman, Mr. Terrific, Ms. Marvel, Dr. Doom, Speed Racer, Space Ghost, Rogue
Company of the Year: Mad Cave
Best Individual Issues of the Year: Out of Alcatraz #1, No Man’s Land #1, Survive #1, Absolute Batman Annual #1, Mark Spears Monsters #8, Uncanny X-Men #17, Exquisite Corpses #1, Assorted Crisis Events #6.
Sha Na Na was one of my favorite shows as a kid so I am enjoying the trip down memory lane with the boys. I have to say that I still believe that the show is so much better when you have guest stars on the show with musical abilities.
These three episodes featured: Chuck Berry, Bobby Rydell and Leslie Gore. If I were them, I would have had Chuck Berry do a second song on the actual stage set. They had him do “Roll Over Beethoven” in the road set, which was great, but he could have done another one on the actual stage with the live audience.
They did brink Leslie Gore out to the stage to the audience when she was on episode 21. It just felt more special than the others, even though Chuck Berry knocked the performance out of the park.
In episode 20, Sha Na Na performed “Unchained Melody, which may be their best performance ever on the stage. The song was at a quicker pace and the background choreography was spot on. A lot of times, Sha Na Na look a touch out of step with the background dancing. I mean, they are singers and not necessarily dancers. However, this performance was fire. Unchained Melody, which was more well known as by the Righteous Brothers, was originally performed as a doo wop song by Vito and the Salutations in 1963. This is the version Sha Na Na was doing.
We also got some great vocalization with Bowzer and Johnny in Lovers Never Say Goodbye, in episode 21. This group have some great singers that compliment each other really well. Bowzer and Johnny work perfectly together in this song.
Alley Oop was one of the most distinct memories I have of the comedy skit songs the group would do. They would break in the song to do some silly joke. Most of the jokes were cringy, but I did love the song performed by Dirty Dan and Screamin’ Scott.
They still overuse the crowd noise/laugh track, but it is not as distracting as it was in the first half of season one.
Theme Song: “A Smile and a Ribbon” by Patience and Prudence (1956).
The song was written by Mark McIntyre and Robert Wells.
The song originally served as a B-side to Patience and Prudence’s smash hit “Tonight You Belong to Me.”
The song is the most recent additions to the list as IT: Welcome to Derry has just aired on HBO Max, finishing its 8-episode season. The theme was so weird the first week, but grew on me as each week progressed. It is so creepy and odd for this sweet, little song to be placed on this horror series with images of Derry’s dark history behind it. The use of this theme is genius and this is an example of a theme that, if I redid this list in a year or two, would be way higher than it is now.
So this was a series that I have wanted to watch for awhile now. The time was just never right, but with Christmas break upon me, plus the second season debuting in January on HBO Max, I thought I would give The Pitt a try.
See, I am a hypochondriac… well, sort of. Medical shows have bothered me in the past. I am bothered by things that can go wrong in the human body. While it does not make me feel as if I am having the same symptoms, it does bother me. That being said, the idea of each episode being an hour at a time in an emergency room made me think of 24 and I was intrigued.
I almost stopped at the first episode. A couple of scenes in that first show nearly finished me off. I was in on some of the storylines though so I decided to stick with it. After four episodes, I am fully in and will hopefully not have any further issues.
The storylines were coming hard and fast in the first four episodes. I was working on the EYG Comic Cavalcade as I was watching so the number of episodes just kept rolling as I worked. Perhaps I shouldn’t work as I watched, because I was being distracted by the show.
Noah Wylie led this cast of actors that I mostly did not recognize. Yet, they all did a great job with their roles. The short term stories with the patients were all very engaging and ranged from deadly serious to a good laugh.
One that especially caught my attention was a mother who faked an illness to get some help with her son. She found a list of girls to eliminate in his room, causing some serious tension of the story. That one is still percolating away. There was one that seemed to fly by faster with a brother and sister who desperately tried to keep their father alive, despite his wishes not to be on life-saving equipment. That story felt like it played out over a longer time than what it actually did, since the four episodes were designed to be only four hours total.
There were also a bunch of deaths in that four hour period. It truly showed the anguish the doctors and nurses have to deal with in their daily job.
The characters are introduced really well as there is not a ton of time to spend with them. Their minutes on screen are maximized extremely effectively.
I was not sure I was going to continue to watch this during episode one because of my own issues, but I am glad I pushed on. This is a strong series so far and my goal is to finish season one before the arrival of season two in January.
Hey all. I am on Winter Break so I am into the relaxation mode. EYG is involved in the Year in Review, finishing up the movies for the year, waiting for Stranger Things Part 2, starting on The Pitt on HBO, among other things. That may sound busy, but it is busy with things that I love.
Comics are a big part of the break as well. We just gave out the Comic Cover Artist of the Year. To no one’s surprise, it was Mark Spears. He also won the Platinum Medal for the Overall Cover of the Year with the metal variant of Mark Spears Monster #3 with the giant shark on it. Love it.
Books this week:
Avengers #33. “Twilight” Written by Jed MacKay with art by Javier Pina. Cover art was done by CAFU & David Curiel. We get some background on the origin of the Impossible City. This was the Legacy number #799, making next issue a major anniversary.
Radioactive Spider-Man #3. Written by Joe Kelly and pencils by Kev Walker. Cover art was done by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Lorenzo Ruggiero & Morry Hollowell. The Age of Revelation arc with Peter Parker comes to an end. Peter survived, which is weird since so many of the characters in this timeline have bit the big one. Aunt May did not make it though.
Survive #4. Written by Robert Venditti with art by Doug Braithwaite. Arturo Lozzi & Laura Martin did cover art. Survive continues to an awesome read. I mentioned last time that this book has a cinematic feel, and this issue kept that up. I really enjoy this Bad Idea book.
Exquisite Corpses #8. Written by Pornsak Pichetshote with James Tynion IV and art by Adam Gorham with Michael Walsh. Cover art by Michael Walsh. I also picked up Cover D by Jorge Fornes (Silver Medalist). This continues to be one of the best books of the month.
Mark Spears Monsters #8. “All That Remains.” Written, Art and cover art by Mark Spears. This is the blind bag issue and I got two of them. The first one I picked up was a foil variant, which was a 1:666 (Gold Medalist). These Monsters books are more than just cover. The story has been a lot of fun.
Mortal Thor #5. “Thy Soul to Take” Written by Al Ewing and art by Pasqual Ferry. Cover art was done by Alex Ross. I also picked up Knullified variant by Netho Diaz (Bronze Medalist). We get a new variation of Odin, talking to a new variation of Loki, talking about Sigmund.
Wrestle Heist #1. Written, drawn and cover art by Kyle Starks. This new Image comic is an intriguing new book with some professional wrestlers. We are following the heel character Sterling Steele, who is preparing to leave the company. That turned out to be a problematic decision.
Nightwing #133. “A Thing That Should Not Be” Written by Dan Watters with art by V. Ken Marion. Cover art by Dustin Nguyen, Elizabeth Torque, with Sabine Rich. The Martian Manhunter comes to Bludhaven to help Nightwing to head into the 5th dimension. Will Dick be able to come back.
Black Cat #5. “Hero to Zero” Written by G. Willow Wilson with art by Gleb Melnikov. Cover art was done by Adam Hughes. Felicia is arrested. Bailed out by Mary Jane Watson. Confronts Tombstone. All in a busy day. Black Cat has been a good read so far.
Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #5. Written by W. Maxwell Prince with art by Martin Morazzo. Cover art was done by Martin Morazzo & Chris O’Halloran. I have enjoyed this series. However, this final issue was not the best of the series. I was disappointed with the ending… especially with the asterisk at the THE END.
Space Ghost #6. Written by David Pepose with art by Jonathan Lau. Cover art was done Francesco Mattina. What happens when Space Ghost gets turned into a space vampire? I did not know that there was even such a thing. Jan and Jace show their importance once again.
Daredevil & Punisher #2. “The Broken Machine.” Written by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Tommaso Bianchi and Gabriel Guzman. Cover art was done by Skan. This book has a great example of the different sides of crime fighting between Daredevil and Punisher.
Amazing Spider-Man: Torn #3. Written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Pepe Perez. Cover art was done by Greg Land & Rachelle Rosenberg. Spidey fights the monster version of Evangeline as she tried to find the mystic book that turned her.
X-Men: Book of Revelation #3. Written by Jed MacKay with art by Netho Diaz. Cover art was done by Netho Diaz, JP Mayer, & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. Elbecca makes her move on Revelation only to find that she may not have been as secretive as she thought.
Omega Kids #3. Written by Tony Fleecs with art by Andres Genolet. Cover art was done by Rod Reis. We see that Quentin Quire is still a bad ass. The Omega Kids had a lot of potential, and Quentin was impressed with their abilities.. just before he killed them all. Age of Revelation claimed more victims.
Strange Tales #3. Written by Jeremy Whitley with art by Bayleigh Underwood. Cover art was done by Bayleigh Underwood & Jim Campbell. The Hulk is on a rampage, controlled by the Enchantress.
Sam & Twitch Case Files #20. Written by Thomas Healy with art by Von Randal. Marco Failla did the cover art. The previous case that has been haunting Sam is underway. I have enjoyed this duo over the last couple of years.
Everything Dead & Dying #4. Written by Tate Brombal with artwork by Jacob Phillips. Cover art was done by Jacob Phillips & Tongi Zonjic. The normal people are going all in against the zombies in the small town. However, a certain little girl is on her way back to her daddy.
The Last Wolverine #3. Written by Saladin Ahmed with art by Edgar Salazar. Cover art was done by Martin Coccolo and Matthew Wilson. More death in the Age of Revelation. Leonard sacrifices himself to save Logan. This book obviously is vital to the overall story as Logan is back and ready to contribute.
G.I. Joe #16. Written by Joshua Williamson with art and cover art was done by Tom Reilly. Cobra Commander makes his present known in the Dreadnok War. Duke and the Joes are back and are ready to join in.
Hector Plasm: Hunt for Bigfoot #3. Written by Benito Cereno with art and cover art by Derek Hunter. This short series finished with this issue. The truth about the bigfoot comes out in the issue. This was a fun little series.
Cul-De-Sac #5. “You’re Not the Hunter Anymore.” Written by Mike Carey with art and cover art by Jonathan Wayshak. The Bad Idea book is feeling like it is wrapping up. Everything all started to come together.
Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #15. “The Haunting of the Wrecker” Finale. Written by Jed MacKay with art by Domenico Carbone. Davide Paratore did the cover art. Moon Knight wrapped up the Wrecker story. Then, someone kidnapped him. This leads into the next version of the Moon Knight series, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1 coming in January.
Absolute Flash #10. “Rogues’ Revenge” Part Two. Written by Jeff Lemire and art and cover art by Nick Robles. The Rogues are still out there as Wally tries to find out what is going on. Was that Barry Allan at the end of the book? Something weird is going on.
Liquidator #2. Written by Peter Milligan with art and cover art by Piotr Kowalski. Barry Dyer is feeling down, down enough that he might be suicidal. Instead, he was recruited as a Liquidator, and time travel action ensued.
High Strangeness #3. “Book Three: 1983” Written by Christopher Cantwell & Daniel Noah with illustration by Valeria Burzo. Cover art was done by Valeria Burzo & Francesco Segala. The anthology series has another solid story.
Endeavour #2. Written by Stephanie Phillips with art by Marc Laming and Tony Shasheen. Marc Laming did the cover art. I like this DSTLRY book quite a bit as we see more with the kids left alive on the ship. This is a great story.
Space Scouts #2. Written by Matt Kindt with art and cover art by David Rubin. The new Dark Horse oversized book is a good time. We start seeing the truth behind the whole Space Scout competition.
Bat-Man: Second Knight #2. Written by Dan Jurgens with art and cover art by Mike Perkins. The Bat-Man and Superman are together as the Scarecrow is causing some trouble. I love this Elseworld story setting our heroes in the World War II time frame.
Other books this week: They’re All Terrible Deluxe Edition #1, Harley Quinn x Elvira #3, Yuletide #3, Ghost Pepper #6, Ancestral Recall #5, The power Fantasy #14, Conan the Barbarian #27, No Place #2, 30 Days of Night: Falling Sun #2, and Rivals: Ignite #1.
Quick Bits: This week’s quick bits kick off with Planet She-Hulk #2 as Jen continues along with trying to run Sakaar. Rogue Storm #3 was my least favorite third issue of the Age of Revelation. I am still unsure where the timeline for Black Panther: Intergalactic #1 falls. Korvac is causing trouble in Battleworld #4, BUT Spidey and Bucky find a new group of heroes. Crystar was there too! Sonja Reborn #4 has a cool picture cover. Alien vs. Captain America #2 sees the Howling Commandos get f-ed up badly. Racer X #4 once again is the same story as in Speed Racer, just from a different perspective. Terrorbytes #3 gives a prison story that was very interesting. W0rldtr33#17 focuses on the internet maybe coming back. DC KO Harley Quinn vs. Zatanna#1 sees a cool fight between these two. Harley dies, but clearly she is not dead. Not sure I have been a fan of these individual fight books so far. The Author Immortal #3 has not been my favorite book so far, but it is original. Die!Namite: Blood Red #3 has Red Sonja joining up with Vampirella and Miss Fury. It has been a fun book.
Episode eight is the penultimate episode of season one of Pluribus. It feels as if I have only begun to watch it. Having the first season on the brink of being over is odd.
The episode started off with Manousos getting medical attention from his trouble in the jungle last week. He refused to stay to recover though, as he discovered that he was in Panama. There was not much from him this week, but it is clear that he is on the way to Carol’s soon.
Meanwhile, Carol has reunited with Zosia, which she seems very pleased about after her forced isolation by the hivemind. Carol was bonding with Zosia, though also picking her for information. Carol wrote on her dry erase board that the hivemind was planning on creating an antenna to send message (virus?) to other planets.
The show revealed an answer to a mystery. Specifically, are animals a part of the hivemind. We meet a nice dog at the hivemind’s sleepover that proved that animals are not a part of the hivemind.
Carol took her relationship with Zosia to another level after an emotional confrontation with her after a weird trip to a diner from Carol’s past. They had sex and Carol started to write afterwards again. She does feel like she is becoming more connected to Zosia. I wonder what will happen when Manousos gets there.
One more episode to go for Pluribus. It has been a wonderful show so far on Apple TV +. Vince Gilligan seems to have another hit on his hands.
It Was Just An Accident was an international film which was a co-production between Iran, France, and Luxembourg. I had heard positives about the film on FYC and I had a chance to rent it off Fandango at Home.
According to IMDB, “An unassuming mechanic is reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he encounters a man he suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, he rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners to confirm the man’s identity.”
Powerful storytelling as we follow this group of people who had had their lives touched by this tormenter from an Iranian prison. Each person had to reassess their own choices and moral line as they attempt to confirm that this man is who they believe him to be.
There are enough doubts tossed around by the script that you as viewer are never quite sure which way the story will go. Is this the cruel torturer or is it a man who had a similar injury? The tormentor had a prosthetic leg and was dubbed the nickname “Peg Leg.” The man had the same prosthetic, but since the victims were always blindfolded, they could not specifically identify him, and the man had a seemingly cohesive story to cover the possible truth. I will admit that I was never 100% sure during the movie is he was Peg Leg or not.
Without spoilers, I loved the ending of the film. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really found it to be refreshing.
The performances from the actors were top line. Vahid Mobasseri played Vahid, the mechanic who first discovered the possible Peg Leg, played by Ebrahim Azizi. Mariam Afshari was Shiva, a photographer who Vahid tried to get confirmation from. Other cast members included Majid Panahi,Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr, Delnaz Najafi and Georges Hashemzadeh.
I really enjoyed this international film. It was extremely well written with some exceptional performances.
This week for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk, we start a two episode documentary on HBO Max about Billy Joel called Billy Joel: And So It Goes. This is truly a first for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk because the first episode is almost 2 and a half hours long. Next week’s is about the same. We have never had an episode for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk as long as this was.
Honestly, I love Billy Joel, but, when the show first came out on HBO Max, the runtime of the documentary was something that put me off. However, the timing of this worked out perfectly as The Haunting of Hill House ended last week, and the next series would start over Christmas break from school. I have two weeks off from teaching and so anything that I did not get to watch on a Sunday because of the length of the documentary could easily be watched during the week. It was perfect.
I watched Part 1 today, and the doc was fascinating. It reveled a ton of details that I was unaware of pertaining to Billy Joel. The early career depression that led him to attempt suicide a couple of times was truly unexpected.
Many rock documentaries do not feature some of the worst times of the performer. They may gloss over things that they do not want to explore. I did not get that feeling about Billy Joel: And So It Goes. The cliché phrase “warts and all” seems to fit as the first episode talked about Billy’s drinking, his depression and suicide attempts, his attitude toward the record companies, just to mention a few. All of this came together to show us a cool portrait of this musician.
There were plenty of talking heads in the film including comments form Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, John Mellencamp, as well as people closer to Billy. His wife/manager Elizabeth Weber was an essential character in the narrative of Billy Joel’s early successes, and she appeared through the entire episode. Of course, we also heard directly from Billy Joel in multiple settings and time periods.
The first episode ended just after the motorcycle accident that Billy survived and the split of his marriage with Elizabeth.
Meme of the Year is not an award we give out every year, but this year there is one absolute meme that has taken over the culture.
TikTok brought us a bunch of these “Brain Rot” words that kids were using. Among the “rizz,” “Ohio,” and “skibiti toilets” came two numbers… 6-7.
You had to throw a hand gesture in with the numbers, extending seven a bit.
One of the best (???) parts about 6-7 is that it means nothing. I mean, not literally nothing, it just has no intrinsic meaning, and that caused plenty of confusion among adults.
Of course, adults have confiscated the word for jokes or cringe moments. Still, it does not seem as if 6-7 is going anywhere.
It originally came from a song called “Doot Doot.”
Then, it came from a nickname of a basketball player…
Composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter. Arranged by Paul Murta.
The voice over that started the theme off was spoken by John Ashley.
According to Google, the them was “known for its military-inspired, lighthearted tone, the theme was designed to reflect the show’s action-comedy nature rather than pure reality. “
The A-Team was fun and the beginning worked to get the viewer into the show. I was always the biggest fan of Murdock, as I felt he was the most original character around.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 