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Genre-ary 2024: Musicals
It is time for the second annual Genre-ary DailyView. It started last January 2023 with a DailyView of Science Fiction movies that I had never seen before. It went so well, I decided that this would be a regular event every January with different types of genres.
This year’s genre will be musicals.
I generally consider musicals to be those films that have people break into song at times during the story and not a film that uses music as the backdrop of the story. So This is Spinal Tap is not a musical despite there being a bunch of songs. It is a movie about music. Yet, I will probably not hold to that definition during this DailyView.
The DailyView for this Genre-ary will begin on January 1st. I have a list of musicals that could work for the month, but I have not yet determined which one will kick us off.
This will be the running list of the movies watched during January.
Genre-ary 2024
January 1: Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)
January 2: Kinky Boots: The Musical (2019)
January 3: Top Hat (1935)
January 4: Tommy (1975)
January 5: Dicks: The Musical (2023)
January 6: My Fair Lady (1964)
January 7: Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
January 8: Eric Idle’s What About Dick? (2012)
January 9: Oliver! (1968)
January 10: Brigadoon (1954)
January 11: High School Musical (2006)
January 12: Hair (1979)
January 13: Man of La Mancha (1972)
January 14: Damn Yankees (1958)
January 15: The First Nudie Musical (1976)
January 16: Viva Las Vegas (1964)
January 17: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
January 18: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)
January 19: Cry-Baby (1990)
January 20: Yentl (1983)
January 21: Ray (2004)
Taylor Swift-All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Incest! The Musical (2011)
Zombie Musical (2011)
January 22: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
January 23: Shrek: The Musical (2013)
January 24: Earth Girls are Easy (1989)
January 25: Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
January 26: Once (2007)
January 27: Fame (1980)
January 28: South Pacific (1958)
January 29: 42nd Street (1933)
January 30: Topsy Turvy (1999)
January 31: Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Month By Month 2024
This is the third year that EYG will be having a month by month collage on the main page. This is where it will be placed for posterity.
Happy New Year to everyone from EYG
January 2024
February 2024
MARCH 2024
April 2024
May 2024
June 2024
July 2024
August 2024
September 2024
October 2024
November 2024
December 2024
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
This was a prequel that I never thought that I wanted. To see the trailers leading up to this film, I was just not interested. It felt as if the Hunger Games had really been played out and did not need anything more. Certainly not a prequel focusing on Coriolanus Snow, the villain of the Hunger Games trilogy.
However, after seeing the movie, I can see the purpose behind the film, and I enjoyed it, for part of it at least.
We see Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) who becomes a mentor for one of the tributes in the tenth annual Hunger Games. His tribute was Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler). Snow was looking to advance in the society and gave ideas to change and adapt the Hunger Games to Dr. Volumnia Gaul, the creator of the games.
Trying to get Lucy Gray to be more engaging, Snow started to bond with the girl. He did whatever he could to help her survive the games.
I really liked the first hour and forty five minutes of this movie. The first two acts were tremendous and I was thoroughly entertained. Unfortunately, the third act was added on and felt totally like a different movie. The characters seemed different than they were in the first two acts and I did not like the ending near as well.
It also became very long. The second act (or split into chapters as the film does) seemed like a perfect ending for the film, but suddenly, we got another 45 minutes and, I am sorry to say, I felt it.
I think Rachel Zegler is a star. She is fantastic though the entire prequel and she did have chemistry with Tom Blyth. Unfortunately, the pairing of Snow and Lucy Gray seemed to happen too quickly for any sort of romantic pairing. Both actors did a sensational job with their performances though.
Viola Davis was great too, with her extremely creepy portrayal of Dr. Gaul. She was a great villain in this role, and turned out to be a considerable mentor for Snow.
The look of the film was great. The CGI and the action were top line and the section with the actual 10th Annual Hunger Games was clearly the standout section of the movie. I just did not like the third act. It felt out of place and dragged the movie along.
I still enjoyed the film. It just felt like I saw two completely different movies, with the first two acts being compelling and thrilling and the third act being drawn out and different than what we had seen in the first two. Still, overall, I think the movie was able to justify its existence.
3.6 stars
EYG Hall of Fame Cinema Wing
Throughout the year, I induct worthy nominees into the Embrace Your Geekness Hall of Fame. Whether it be the regular vote on the ballot by the EYG Nation, the Legends nominees, the Comic Issue Wing or special inductees, the EYG Hall of Fame is very active.
I decided that it was time to open a new wing of the EYG Hall of Fame. One of the biggest ‘geeks’ that many people have is movies. There are some movies that have made it into the EYG Hall of Fame, but I have always felt like there had not been enough considering how many amazing movies there have been over the years.
The films that have already been inducted into the EYG HoF are as follows: The Princess Bride, Star wars: A New Hope, Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Planet of the Apes (1968), Marvel’s The Avengers, Back to the Future, The Terminator, The Empire Strikes Back, Jaws, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Marvel’s Black Panther, Die Hard, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Return of the Jedi, and Jurassic Park.
I approached Death Tribble, one of the members of the Hero Games Forum. DT had been active in the ballot this year and he had some suggestions for future possible inductees. Several of his suggestions were movies and he sounded very well versed in them. I asked him if he was interested in helping open an EYG Hall of Fame Cinema Wing, and he said that he would be happy to be involved.
He suggested several ideas on how to proceed. In order to kick off the Cinema Wing with a bang, he commented on organizing a series of decades, choosing potential inductees from each decade and narrowing it down to one from each of the following: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,70s, 80s, 90s. We chose not to do anything from the current century.
There was some question between us about what makes up a decade. DT was with the idea that the decade of the 1950s should run from 1951-1960 and so forth. I was more of a 1950-1959 guy for this, even though I recognized that the decades technically end with the aught year.
To get past this, we agreed to also include a group of ten that were from the “aught” years (1950, 1960, 1970 etc.).
DT provided me with a list of ten possible films from each of these decades to consider. I looked at his lists and made a couple of adjustments, but, honestly, I did not make too many changes. Then we went decade by decade and discussed the positives and negatives of each film. There were times when we each had to put aside personal biases and favorites in order to find the most worthwhile films for the first official induction into the EYG Cinema Wing of the Hall of Fame.
We looked at such things as influence, awards, acting, personal choices, what could be considered ‘geek’ and success. Every decade was a little different in how we made decisions. There were even a few times when DT used his percent dice to help make a decision (if you are on the NGD forum board, you know about DT’s percent dice).
After several weeks of work, we have found nine inductees into the first class of the EYG Cinema Wing of the Hall of Fame. They will join the other films that are already in the HoF.
Moving forward, the plan is to not induct a many films as this first year. Specifics are yet to be determined, but the initial plan is to do this Cinema induction at the beginning of May, to coincide with the summer movie season.
So without any further adieu, here are the first inductees into the EYG HoF Cinema Wing.
1920: Nosferatu (1922)
1930: King Kong (1933)
1940: Citizen Kane (1941)
1950: Seven Samurai (1954)
1960: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
1970: The Godfather (1972)
1980: Blade Runner (1982)
1990: Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Aughts: Psycho (1960)
There they are. Congratulations to all of the inductees into the inaugural Cinema Wing.
I would like to thank Death Tribble for his efforts in making this happen. His knowledge and insights were extremely helpful and welcome in making these decisions. I appreciate his time and everything that he did to help make this a great kickoff. He really put in some work on these lists and helping to highlight the credentials of each film.
Goosebumps S1 E9
Spoilers
“Night of the Living Dummy: Part 2”
Goosebumps felt like a finale last week, but there were two more episodes remaining and I was not sure where the show would go from there.
The ninth episode was back to Mr. Bratt who was struggling with what to do next. He chose to write a book based on the whole Slappy situation. The publisher loved it but wanted a new ending. That led to Bratt going back to find the dummy.
There was a whole thing with a dead body and the spirit came from Slappy into the body and he headed out of the house to … um… cause problems I guess.
We had seen Mr. Bratt’s backstory as he was truly a loser. I wondered how he wound up being hired as a teacher. I guess he was pretty pathetic.
The kids have gone to Seattle, and Lucas and Margot broke up after they realized that they were not really compatible.
Colin proposes to Nora. The parents were not really in much of this episode.
This episode felt like a filler until the finale next week.
Goosebumps S1 E8
Spoilers
“You Can’t Scare Me”
The Harold Biddle storyline came to a dramatic conclusion on a cliff in the middle of a snowstorm.
Harold had finally gotten Slappy away from Nora and the crew of the kids and their parents confronted Harold as Isaiah dangled from the cliff (how he did that with his broken arm…well, that was pretty impressive, if not impossible).
The villainous puppet egging on Harold to keep fighting and to kill Isaiah in revenge for what had happened to Harold when he was alive.
Harold’s ghost parents played a part in the finale of the episode too as Harold turned on Slappy and sent him flying over the edge of the cliff.
This did feel like a finale. It was also one of my favorite episodes of the season and it was a big step up over the last few episodes which had been a little weaker.
It is clear that Slappy is not done though. We see his decapitated puppet body as his eye opens.
I like this episode a lot and I am curious to see where this goes from here.
Echo trailer
Okay… who saw this coming.
The speculation on the series of Echo was that it was going to be a failure. All the signs were pointing at the possible fact that Echo was going to be a mess. It had been pushed to January. They plan on dropping all episodes at the same time, a first for any Disney + show. And the character of Echo was easily the worst part of the Hawkeye series.
So color me surprised when this trailer came out and it was fantastic. The story of the trailer was centered around the relationship between Echo and Wilson Fisk, who looks as brutal as he did during the Netflix Daredevil series. It was a thrilling trailer.
Before the trailer, I was planning on watching Echo but I was not anticipating it. After the trailer, I am excited about the series and hope that it is as good as the trailer. The trailer succeeded in making me more intrigued for Echo.
Now and Then
A surprise today. I’m listening to the radio after school in the car and they started talking about a new Beatles song.
What?
Apparently there was a song that was sung by John Lennon that the surviving Beatles have been working on for forty years. The recording was Lennon playing piano and singing with a TV playing in the background. With the tech, they were able to remove the TV sound and make a great new song.
I purchased it on iTunes and listened to it immediately, and I will say that I really loved it. I had some feelings, some emotions that I did not expect. The fact that both John and George Harrison are gone now was a part of that feeling. I felt as if I could cry.
I was not that much of a fan of the song “Free as a Bird” that the group put out several years ago in the same manner, post John Lennon’s death. It just did not have the same feel. Now and Then, that one had something.
Apparently a video is out tomorrow and there is a making-of short film available somewhere too. The Beatles are one of my favorite bands of all-time and the fascination with them continues to this day.
Word Cloud: LOST
Trailers from Geek Buddies
I was watching the Geek Buddies on YouTube today, which is a podcast with John Rocha, Michael Vogel and Shannon McClung. During their weekly show, they typically talk about new trailers and so I figured I could add the trailers to this post.
Lisa Frankenstein
This looks kind of funny. It could be a fantastic film or a complete nightmare. Kathryn Newton leads the film.
Fargo Season 5
It has been awhile since I watched a season of Fargo. This trailer looks to have the oddball charm and bizarre feel of the best of this anthology series. By Nov. 21, Loki, Goosebumps will be done, maybe I’ll give this one a looksee.
Maestro Trailer 2
This is the Netflix movie, directed by Bradley Cooper, featuring the story of the relationship between icon Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.
You should definitely give The Geek Buddies a try if you have not watched it before. John, Michael and Shannon have chemistry all over the place and they are always funny. They give some excellent opinions on geek culture and are always engaging.
Word Cloud: Halloween
Word Cloud: Music
World Cloud: TV
Word Cloud: Horror
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 