With the date of September 14th looming all the closer, it is about time to start thinking about Ryan Murphy’s house of horrors, American Horror Story. We just recently got what could be a hint about the theme for season 6, American Horror Story: The Mist.  How this may or may not tie in to the Stephen King novella of the same name is yet to be seen (although Spike TV has given a 10-episode order for a TV show based on that King novella.)

This makes me wonder about the previous five seasons and where I might rank them.  So…

#5.  Hotel.  This one was my least favorite of the shows, as I lost interest about midway through the season.  I did enjoy the serial killer ghosts meeting episode entitled “Devil’s Night.”  This episode showed that creativity that had been sprinkled throughout each season.  I don’t know if the absence of Jessica Lange hurt the show, but I never could get into Lady Gaga that much.

#4.  Coven.  The group of witches was fun at times, especially with the addition of Kathy Bates as Madame Delphine LaLaurie and Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe as Queenie.  The use of the racist Madame LaLaurie and the large black woman in Queenie really helped the season find a voice.  Bates was just amazing, not just playing the straight up racist.  Their relationship was even touching at times, despite the dark way in which it ended.

#3.  Freak Show.  This one is one of my favorites and, for me, re-energized the show after the weaker Coven.  There were just so much to enjoy here…from the evil killer clown Twisty to the real monster of the season, Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock).  Jessica Lange’s Elsa Mars was full of contradictions and selfishness, but she really loved the freaks.  Add to it the great performance of David Bowie’s Life on Mars and Freak Show had something for everyone.

#2.  Murder House.  This was very nearly number one.  We had never seen anything like Murder House before.  The use of real life past murders (such as the Black Dahlia victim) as well as one of the most compelling villains we have ever seen (Evan Peters’s Tate) created an air of suspense and uncertainty.  With the Rubber Man running around the Murder House, and with people dying and not leaving the house, the first season set up for one of the most shocking set of events we have seen in a long time.  Dyla McDermott and Connie Britton added a gravitas to the cast.  And there was a rooting section for Tate and Violet (Taissa Farmiga).  I don’t think I have ever seen as disturbing of a sequence as the school shooting during season one.  Unless it is “Piggy Piggy”, one of the series standout episodes.

#1. Asylum.  This was my own personal favorite.  I will never forget the ride into the oven by Dr. Arden (James Cromwell).  There were so many disturbing images of the way mental patients were treated in the 1960s that a horror show is perfectly set in an asylum.  And that does not even take into account the weirdness that was being done to these poor victims by the cruel nuns or the former Nazi scientists.  And aliens?  Add to it the most unlikely and entertaining moment of all season… The Name Game performed by Jessica Lange herself.  That showed us that truly anything could happen in the asylum and on American Horror Story.

Both Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto and Sarah Paulson were brilliant this season, but we also had a horrendous serial killer, Bloody Face.

Asylum was a creative high for the anthology series that it has been striving to find since.

Between Bloody Face and Rubber Man, what will the signature villain be in The Mist?  I can’t wait to find out.

The Eisner Awards, awards given for excellence int he comic book medium, were presented Friday night at Comic Con.  The Eisner Awards (named after EYG Hall of Famer Will Eisner) are sometimes considered the Academy Awards for comics.  Here is a list of the winners this year:

Best Short Story

• “Killing and Dying,” by Adrian Tomine, inOptic Nerve #14 (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Single Issue/One-Shot

• Silver Surfer #11: “Never After,” by Dan Slott and Michael Allred (Marvel)

Best Continuing Series

• Southern Bastards, by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour (Image)

Best Limited Series

• The Fade Out, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)

Best New Series

• Paper Girls, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Image)

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)

• Little Robot, by Ben Hatke (First Second)

Best Publication for Kids (ages 9-12)

• Over the Garden Wall, by Pat McHale and Jim Campbell (BOOM! Studios/KaBOOM!)

Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)

• Super Mutant Magic Academy, by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Humor Publication

• Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Digital/Webcomic

• Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain/comiXology)

Best Anthology

• Drawn & Quarterly, Twenty-Five Years of Contemporary, Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels, edited by Tom Devlin (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Reality-Based Work

• March: Book Two, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)

Best Graphic Album—New

• Ruins, by Peter Kuper (SelfMadeHero)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

• Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson (Harper Teen)

Best Adaptation from Another Medium

• Two Brothers, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

• The Realist, by Asaf Hanuka (BOOM! Studios/Archaia)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

• Showa, 1953–1989: A History of Japan, by Shigeru Mizuki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

• The Eternaut, by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano Lòpez, edited by Gary Groth and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

• Walt Kelly’s Fairy Tales, edited by Craig Yoe (IDW)

Best Writer

• Jason Aaron, Southern Bastards (Image), Men of Wrath (Marvel Icon), Doctor Strange, Star Wars, Thor (Marvel)

Best Writer/Artist

• Bill Griffith, Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Secret Love Affair with a Famous Cartoonist (Fantagraphics)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

• Cliff Chiang, Paper Girls (Image)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist

• Dustin Nguyen, Descender (Image)

Best Cover Artist

• David Aja, Hawkeye, Karnak, Scarlet Witch (Marvel)

Best Coloring

• Jordie Bellaire, The Autumnlands, Injection, Plutona, Pretty Deadly, The Surface, They’re Not Like Us, Zero (Image); The X-Files (IDW); The Massive (Dark Horse); Magneto, Vision (Marvel)

Best Lettering

• Derf Backderf, Trashed (Abrams)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

• Hogan’s Alley, edited by Tom Heintjes (Hogan’s Alley)

Best Comics-Related Book

• Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America, by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

• The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings (Rutgers)

Best Publication Design

• Sandman Gallery Edition, designed by Graphitti Designs and Josh Beatman/Brainchild Studios (Graphitti Designs/DC)

Congratulations to all the winners!

In honor of this weekend’s new Netflix release, Stranger Things (which is a fantastic series that I have not included on this list, though it might fit eventually), I have decided to list the top ten shows/movies/programs that I have seen on the streaming service.  Now, there might be some on this list that other people have seen in other formats, but these are all great presentations that I actually watched for the first time on Netflix.

#10.  The Sheik.  There are a lot of great documentaries on the site.  I have seen plenty of them including Mick Foley’s I Am Santa Claus and Confessions of a Super Hero.  The Shiek tells the story of pro wrestler The Iron Sheik, a colorful character who came from Iran into the WWF.

#9.  Pee Wee’s Big Holiday.  I was unbelievably shocked that I liked this movie.  But I watched this movie in order to review it for the Doc’s Movie Review section of EYG and I laughed throughout.  It was a great surprise.  It was one of the original Netflix movies filmed

#8.  Hush.  Another movie, but this one was not a Netflix original.  This film had its release at South by Southwest film festival, but had its rights purchased by Netflix.  This horror/thriller film is full of great performances and tense moments.  I was turned onto this film by YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann and I had a really good time.

#7.  Orange is the New Black.  This is the first original Netflix series to make this list.  Orange has had four seasons now filled with remarkable performances with a great ensemble cast.  The women of the Litchfield Penitentiary have shown us the life behind bars, filled with drugs, sex, gangs, violence and friendship.

#6.  House of Cards.  How could you go wrong with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright playing a manipulative and power hungry Washington D.C. couple, The Underwoods.  Believed to be based on the Clintons, there has not ever been a bigger shock than what Frank Underwood did to series regular Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara).  I won’t spoil for those who may not have seen it yet, but what exactly are you waiting for?

#5.  The Imposter.  A documentary that focuses on the story of Frederic Bourdin, a con man from Spain who claimed to be the grown up son of a family in Texas who had disappear years earlier.  Telling the story in his own words, Bourdin was tremendously compelling, as was the mystery of what actually happened to the missing boy… a mystery that ha never been solved.

#4.  Jessica Jones.  The second series from Marvel TV/Netflix’s agreement was groundbreaking.  A strong female lead played by Krysten Ritter who suffered from PTSD from her time under the mental control of Kilgrave (David Tennent), but she uses her super strength to be a private detective.  Jessica Jones was more than just another super hero show.  It was a tale of survivors and the struggles they face.

#3.  Freaks & Geeks.  Another key to Netflix is they have older movies and television programs available and I had never seen the beloved former TV show that lasted only one season, Freaks & Geeks.  So I was able to binge it and I saw why people loved the series.  It is a crime that this show from Paul Feig and Judd Apatow did not go longer than 18 episodes.  James Franco, Seth Rogan, Samm Levine, Jason Segal, Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley among others got their breaks on this show.  It perfectly showed high school life during the 1980s.  It was brilliant and Netflix gives you a chance to see this great show.

#2.  Life of Reilly.  This is no longer on Netflix, but it is my favorite “documentary” ever.  Charles Nelson Reilly had a one-man stage show about his life, telling these dark and ridiculously funny stories of his life.  Reilly tells about his weird family, including his mother who shouted racial insults out the window, his father who had lost an opportunity to work with Walt Disney and the day CNR went to the circus on the day it burned to the ground.  “Well, it’s that kind of play,” Reilly said every time the crowd groaned in shock or sadness.  Life of Reilly is a story of success despite a background that did not allow such a thing.  And it is uproariously funny.

#1 Daredevil.  Two seasons of amazing action, drama and perfection.  Daredevil is the story of blind attorney Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and his alter ego, The Man Without Fear, Daredevil.  Completely wiping away the memory of the less than stellar movie starring Ben Affleck, the Daredevil series had tremendous fight choreography and has, perhaps, the greatest Marvel Cinematic Universe villain, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) ever.   We also got, in season two, the best cinematic version ever of the anti-hero The Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal.  Daredevil is one of the best super hero television show anywhere… and it is on Netflix.

With the return of Match Game on ABC’s “Sunday Fun and Games” block of shows, I have been thinking back to the heydays of one of the great game shows of all time.  The Match Game was one of my childhood favorites.  It was something that I could watch as a child and laugh at, but an adult could watch it and get a completely different vibe.

The panelists on Match Game were most likely drunk all the time.  And they clearly unscripted as they went wild several times.  Panelists switched spots with host Gene Rayburn at least twice, there was a riot over the judge’s refusal to call something a match…just to name a couple.

So… here is the list of the Top Ten Match Game Panelists.

First…some honorable mentions:  Rosie O’Donnell and Tituss Burgess (from the new version), Marcia Wallace, Fannie Flagg, Bill Daily

#10.  Gary Burghoff.  Radar on MASH was a very solid panelist and even sat in on the third seat when Charles Nelson Reilly was gone.

#9.  Nipsey Russell.  Nipsey would always give a little rhyme when he was on.  As an African America during the 1970s, many of the jokes were not always racially appropriate.  However, he was always funny, and extremely quick witted.

#8.  Joyce Bulifant.  Joyce would usually sit in the bottom right seat (the final seat) and she would give some of the funniest, albeit, worst answers on the panel.  She acted fairly ditzy, but she was sharper than what she seemed.

#7.  Patti Deustch.  Another woman who was in that bottom right seat (the “weirdo” seat as Gene Rayburn would say) and the jokes were directed toward some of the wild answers she would write.  Some might argue that she was playing a character for the show, as some of her other appearances on other shows might indicate.

#6.  Elaine Joyce.  Another of the pretty women who seemed to be more than what they appeared.  Elaine was very flirtatious with the males of Match Game.

#5.  McLean Stevenson.  Formerly Lt. Col. Henry Blake from MASH, McLean Stevenson made many appearances on Match Game. In fact, there were a couple of times when McLean took over for Gene Rayburn on a spur of the moment and ran the show (Gene took McLean’s seat.)

#4.  Betty White. Betty was the other panelist to step into Gene’s shoes, showing off her hosting chops.  She was also one of the funniest panelists around.  She imitated Charles one episode which was a riot.  Her one liners with Brett were also fantastic.  Betty White has always brought class, and, even here, it was no exception.

#3.  Brett Somers.  One of the regulars, always seated in the middle of the top row, Brett was always a hoot.  She had an amazing chemistry with Charles and Gene and her smart remarks were almost as enjoyable as her loud and joyous laughter.  She was never afraid to be the butt of the jokes either.

#2.  Richard Dawson.  Probably the best player on the show, virtually all the contestants wanted to do the Super Match with Richard.  It became so much of an issue, the show instituted a “Star Wheel” so other panelists might have a chance to play as well.  Richard was charming and funny and he would go on to be an iconic host of Family Feud.

#1.  Charles Nelson Reilly.  CNR was the funniest panelist on The Match Game.  He had chemistry with everyone that appeared.  He was a classically trained actor who was willing to do anything for a laugh.  He would be on the show with his strange outfits, his toupee and those large glasses and he would smoke his pipe.  He was more than all of those.  He made Brett funnier.  His constant mugging for the camera told you he was having fun and gave you permission to laugh too.  This makes Charles Nelson Reilly Match Game’s greatest panelist of all time.

Welcome to the first post in the new section “Lists, Geek Style” here at EYG.  Like everyone, I love me some lists, and I have been known to put things in subjective order for years.  I remember as a junior high kid doing my own weekly Top 20 songs chart much like the Billboard chart.  Yes, even then, I was a geek.

So this semi-regular column will focus on me placing a certain themed group into a list and counting it down.  The first list will focus on something a lot of different sites did after the release of Captain America: Civil War.  This list will contain all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in order from best to worst.

Now, the word “worst” does not indicate that the last few films on this list are bad.  In fact, I would go on a limb and say that Marvel Studios has yet to release a bad film.  The last couple of films just happen to be the weaker of the group.  I mean, everyone can’t be Top 5, can they?

Without further adieu, here is the list of MCU movies in order according to me.

#13.  Iron Man 2.  This is a fairly common choice for lowest on this list.  Iron Man 2 was not as good as it could be.  It felt like it was spending more time trying to set up for future movies than actually telling a compelling story.  I believe that Marvel learned how to world build from the shortcomings of Iron Man 2.

#12.  Thor: Dark World.  There are some really solid moments here, mostly dealing with Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  This featured, arguable, the weakest of all Marvel cinematic villains in Maleketh and some strange storyline involving what would turn out to be an Infinity Stone.

#11 Incredible Hulk.  The film that most everyone would forget was in canon, this Hulk film had the unfortunate situation of having to follow the horrible Hulk movie with Eric Bana and Hulk dogs.  This version of the Hulk was pretty solid, including a very strong performance by Edward Norton as Bruce Banner.  However, the trouble between Norton and Marvel led to Norton leaving the role.  Of course, that also led to the best Bruce Banner ever coming on board for Avengers.

#10.  Iron Man 3.  This one is either loved or reviled.  The biggest issue with Iron Man 3 for everyone was the reveal of the Mandarin.  I did not mind the twist, so I enjoyed the movie.  I know plenty of people who despised that twist, claiming that Marvel ruined the character. I found it clever and Robert Downey Jr. is at his smirky best here.  He had to be because there was a lot of him and not that much of Iron Man.  Some people claim that Iron Man 3 is too much of a Shane Black movie to work in the MCU.  I would respectfully disagree as that different flavor is what makes the MCU a great place to be.

#9.  Thor.  This was a huge risk for Marvel since this was one of the first films not including Robert Downey Jr. in the MCU.  And it was being used to set up the Avengers.  Had this failed, the anticipation for the Avengers would have been tarnished.  Thankfully, not only did this film show a great humor and a great Thor, it also bought us the best MCU villain of all time in Loki.  Sure, Jane Foster wasn’t great, but that could be excused.  Thor continued the progression towards the greatest movie team up of all time.

#8.  Captain America: First Avenger.  Placing this at this spot on the list is tough for me, because I truly do love this film.  The fact is I just can’t place it above the other films.  First Avenger is the Cap origin story with the perfect Steve Rogers.  Chris Evans was a questionable choice for Steve since he was really an actor who played the smart-ass character and he was already Johnny Storm in two Fantastic Four movies, but this film showed how right Marvel is in their casting.  Captain America: First Avenger was a great war film and served as the final connection to Avengers.

#7.  Iron Man.  The godfather of the MCU.  An argument could be made that if Iron Man did not succeed, that nothing that followed would have come into being.  I know RDJ laughs off this fact, but without Iron Man, the MCU is a completely different place.  Iron Man was a wonderful origin story and is full of awesome characters and exciting action.  Seeing that grey armored behemoth coming out of the cave for the first time is every geek’s dream.

#6. Ant Man.  I wouldn’t have guessed that this film would wind up this high, but Ant Man turned out better than anyone would have anticipated.  Especially after the behind the scenes drama of Edgar Wright departing the project just over a year from release.  Marvel did not panic and they did not postpone the film.  Instead, they found a perfect replacement in Peyton Reed.  Ant Man was a welcome change (although the story beats did resemble Iron Man).  The heist movie was smaller, more personal than some of the other offerings from the MCU and that was just the right decision.  A classic cameo from Falcon.  Michael Douglas! Paul Rudd knocked it out of the park as Scott Lang.  Ant Man was the little hero that could.

#5.  Avengers: Age of Ultron.  This is another film that can be somewhat divisive.  Many people did not like this movie.  I loved it.  Here is the issue, IMO.  Age of Ultron was never going to be able to capture that amazing feeling of watching the original Avengers movie because that film had the ability to be the first time these characters were together on the big screen.  There was a nostalgia pop that was lost in Ultron.  If you went in hoping to recapture that feeling, you couldn’t help but be disappointed.  I loved Ultron, and I loved James Spader.  Ultron being like Tony Stark made sense to me (that echoed the comics, only in the comics, Ultron is more like Hank Pym, who created the robot in the comics).  Age of Ultron gave us a perfect rendition of the Vision, created stakes for our heroes, and wound up killing one of them (who has, as yet, not been brought back).  Maybe it did not have the magic of the first time, but that did not mean that it was bad.  Nitpickers can always find faults.  Age of Ultron was a solid film.

#4.  Guardians of the Galaxy.  What a surprise this one was.  When Marvel announced a big screen adaptation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the world responded with a collective…”WHO?”  A group of heroes that included a talking raccoon and a walking tree that only said “I am Groot” was weirder than anything you had seen in the MCU up until then.  But the thing was… weird isn’t bad.  If you do something weird, but you do it brilliantly, people will love it.  James Gunn took this unknown property and made it a massive hit.  Everyone believed that this would be Marvel Studios’ first “bomb.”  Oh how wrong they were.  Guardians of the Galaxy was funny, irreverent, off-beat, while still having that Marvel feel to it.  It was a space opera of the finest order opening up the cosmic side to the MCU.

#3. Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Captain America’s sequel completely changed the tone of the series.  This was not a war movie like the original Cap movie, but a ’70s political thriller, and this film captured that feel and tone perfectly.  This was grittier than any Marvel film to date and gave us tense action and drama. Robert Redford was here as well.  Robert “freakin'” Redford in a Marvel movie.  That signaled the times we live in.  Winter Soldier gave us Falcon, a great brother-sister relationship between Cap and Black Widow, and the return of Bucky as the brainwashed Winter Soldier.  It also brought down SHIELD and changed the MCU forever.

#2.  The Avengers.  The plan came together as one of the greatest comic book movies ever.  Seeing Hulk, Cap, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Thor together for the first time was awe-inspiring.  It was something that many never believed to be possible, and yet Marvel pulled it off.  There are so many great moments in the Avengers, from the fight between Iron Man and Thor to “Puny God”, this film balanced its heroes better than it could ever have been imagined.  Each hero had his/her moment to shine and developed as characters.  Plus, we had Loki.  And an after credit scene with Thanos!  Audiences responded.

#1. Captain America: Civil War.  This epic film was unbelievable.  It took so many characters that many people called it Avengers 2.5 and made it a film that definitely feels like a Captain America film.  The central conflict between Cap and Iron Man made sense and actually created stakes that created tension.  Everyone kept asking who was going to die in Civil War to make the stakes high enough, but Marvel did not fall into that trap.  They created stakes without having to kill someone off.  That final fight scene with Cap and Iron Man was as intense as it could be.  There were action scenes galore in Civil War, including perhaps the greatest action sequence ever with the Airport scene.  It introduced us to what could become the greatest cinematic Spider-man of all time.  It brought us an incredible version of Black Panther, completely nailed by Chadwick Boseman.  It advanced the Vision-Scarlet Witch relationship.  It brought us the scene-stealing Ant Man.  It gave us a different type of villain in Zemo.  And it split the Avengers into two sides without demonizing either side.  You could understand why Cap did what he did and you can understand why Tony did what he did.  Neither man was wrong.  That is an amazing piece of writing with characters that we care about and know after all of the other films that came before it.  Civil War had that major advantage.  It was able to take the continuity of the other films and give us a rich and textured story of characters who we love.  It is the best Marvel film to date.

Now…bring on Dr. Strange!

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