Tag Archives: movies

Boston Legal S1 E3, E4, E5, E6

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Spoilers

“Catch and Release”

“Change of Course”

“An Eye for an Eye”

“Truth Be Told”

I do love this show. It is so well written and acted.

William Shatner may be most well known forever as James T. Kirk, but his best career performances come as Denny Crane. The buffoon-like behavior hiding a deep seeded concern over his health. Arrogant and sarcastic, Shatner’s eyes revealing the truth.

James Spader brings such a complexity to Alan Shore. He is willing to do anything, even step over the lines or morality, to get things done. Many times, his motives are pure. His methods, on the other hand, are anything but. Simplicity, Tara described Alan as split into three people: the Good Alan, the bad Alan and the Naughty Alan. Though it may be too simple for this character, the description does work.

It was sad the way Alan took advantage of Sally, which seemed to be a way for Alan to get Sally to leave him. There is a deep neurosis to Alan and his relationships pay the price. Yet, he is completely loyal to former lovers and women that he respected. He is a contradiction in terms for Alan. It is why I was so happy that, at the end of episode 6, when it appeared that he was going to go and have sex with Dana Delany’s character, a woman he always had desires for, but he turned up in a motel room with Tara instead. Had Alan slept with Delany, the betrayal would have been tough to swallow, especially after he dealt with Delany’s husband’s infidelity. I don’t want Alan to be a hypocrite even if he had many otehr bad traits.

Episodes 3-6 again do not focus as closely on Alan and Denny’s relationship as they could, but there are moments. When Alan came to share their whiskey in Denny’s jail cell after he was charged with contempt of court, they exchanged a wonderful scene where Denny worried about his mental capacities. The whole possible Alzheimer’s Disease arc and how it could destroy the image and legend of “Denny Crane” follows Denny through the entire series.

Alan and Denny are together when Denny lets it slip that Donnie Crane was not his son after all, only for Donny to hear. Freddie Prinze Jr. appeared as the supposed son of Denny Crane, and his devastation in this scene made it all the better.

There are several fun moments of Fourth Wall breaking during the show. In this crop of episodes, my favorite was when Alan Shore said he wanted to be on cable because that was where all the best work was happening. Of course, Boston Legal aired on ABC.

Episode five featured one of Alan’s top line closing arguments. We have not seen too many of those yet in the season, but there will be plenty more to come. This one was just right on the nose for his case that you can tell how the case will go.

Lori is involved more the last few episodes, and they are still teasing a potential relationship between Alan and Lori. Probably one that would be highly toxic.

The End of Oak Street

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The new dinosaur movie, The End of Oak Street, came out this weekend starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. Writer/director David Robert Mitchell brought us this ’80s feeling, Amblin-like film of a family trying to survive the sudden arrival of dinosaurs and other monstrous creatures.

According to IMDB, “The Platt family bands together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood to someplace unknown.“

Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor play Denise and Greg Platt, who had been having marriage troubles, and their two kids acting out in different ways. Hathaway and McGregor do a good job as the married couple with their struggles.

The kids, Audrey and Brian, were played by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery, Christian Convery has been in several projects including Cocaine Bear and the Netflix series Sweet Tooth. I thought both of them did a solid job in the film.

The dinosaurs looked great and the film was sensational with the tension and anxiety of the film off the charts. It brings that tension t a high level while still maintaining the Spielberg-like film and not just falling into a horror creature film. I think the writing was strong and everything was nicely weaved together.

The mystery of the film helps keep the tension high. JJ Abrams is a producer on the film and this kind of unknown plot falls right into his type of storyline.

I liked how the beginning of the movie started diving into the characters more, which I think is a very good way to start. I also love how all of the little character bits that they mention during that time comes back and pays off, even if it is a small mention.

I am not sure how I feel about the end of the film. I was satisfied when I watched it, but, upon some reflection, I am not sure the choice they made was the best choice possible. Of course, I can not go into detail because of spoilers.

This was considerably better than MOST of the Jurassic Park/World films and I was thoroughly entertained thru the entire flick. The actors are likable and the dinosaurs are awesome.

4.25 stars

Rick and Morty S9 E1-E8

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I started the ninth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max today and watched the first eight episodes. I discovered that the Rick and Morty show was shown originally on Adult Swim earlier this summer and then it debuted on HBO Max, releasing every episode weekly. I was confused at first as I saw episode 9 and 10 listed on Wikipedia as having been released already, but it was not available yet on HBO Max. I see that the last two episodes will be released over the next two Mondays, so we will finish as we go.

The last few seasons of Rick and Morty have been lesser than I was used to. They weren’t bad, but there were more episodes that I did not love as much as some of the earlier seasons.

However, I thought that the season nine episodes were just awesome.

The first episode kicked off with the return of Evil Morty, and Morty discovered that Rick was running adventures with Evil Morty. Rick was able to trick Evil Morty into destroying the Omega blueprints in all universes. It set off a war between them and Evil Morty gets arrested by the time police after he tried to time travel.

In “Ricks Days, Seven Nights” Rick went on vacation in a dimension and he wiped his own memory. He does it every year and goes to a planet under the name Ted. Ted decides to stay, and he has to fight against himself trying to get Ted to remember. This was so clever and creative… I loved it.

“Rick Fu Hustle” is next up and while Rick and Morty are trying to keep themselves from having their hearts exploded from a Kung Fu master’s special punch, Jerry is having sex with his robot pool cleaner. Not kidding.

The season seems to have a running storyline where Rick is trying to stop drinking after he has had several bad events, including locking himself out of the lab in the garage. He also lost his always filled flask of vodka from a world of pigs. There was another incident where Rick’s head is decapitated from his body, and the two parts of Rick get into a war with the other. While Rick’s head was separated, he saw how good he felt without the alcohol. Morty had the head and Summer had the body and they tried to reunite.

My least favorite of this season was “MortGully: The Last Rickforest” which saw Rick and Morty on a planet trying to find some special sap from a tree. The tree was alive and called the Warden, who sentenced Rick and Morty to be single celled organisms. The episode was the two of them trying to evolve enough to escape the Warden’s trap. It was funny, but it really went a long way for the joke, which was replayed multiple times.

There was also a wild story with Jerry consuming a bunch of space worms which made him more confident, but caused him to eventually vomit up a massive amount of worms.

I have liked this season more than the previous couple, but there does not seem to be much of a thorough line for the overall story arc. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like a little more connection.

Two more episodes to go.

Rick and Morty Season 8

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I finished season 8 of Rick and Morty this afternoon, leaving me with just the remaining 8 episodes so far of season to watch (I am not sure when new episodes are released on HBO Max. It would be fun to catch up to the current run before it wraps up the season).

I was not as much of a fan of season 8. I found most of season 8 to be average to slightly below average. It wasn’t bad per se, but I just did not think the plan for the season worked as well as previous seasons.

Then, among the first 4-5 episodes, I found a few of them to be in the same vein as season 8… disappointing. It did not make me feel confident about the whole season.

Among those first five, “Summer of All Fears” was one I did not love. It was a Summer-centric episode and, historically, those have not been my favorite. I also was not a huge fan of “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly” which featured a story with other Ricks, specifically a Wild West version that reminded me of Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven. While I love that movie, this one bugged me. Another trend I am not a fan of is when we follow a character that is not our Rick (and I know that can be convoluted).

However, I did like the Space Beth episode “Valkyrick” a lot. The whole trope of a heist movie spelling out the plan of the heist as we see it on the screen was shown here, but the images on the screen showed the heist falling apart because of too much of a dependence on “Cisco.” I really loved that section of this episode.

“The Last Temptation of Jerry” was another of the first episodes that I thought was really funny, if not sacrilege. the whole Easter bit with the rampaging Easter Bunny was really funny and co-opting the Tim Allen Santa Clause plot was great too.

Episode five, “Cryo Mort a Rickver,” was another that did not impress me, though I found it better than the previous episodes that I thought were lacking.

Then, things turned around for the show, and the rest of the season felt like big hits.

I liked how Space Beth and Beth turned themselves into little girls who were anything but sweet. I liked the episode where Jerry gets lost on the road thanks to another Jerry. It was cool to see Morty’s son Junior make a return, which I think I called back when Junior was originally created.

The finale with Rick trying to purge the memories of his wife Diane from his mind so he could be more emotionally open was a very good episode. I loved the ending where Rick pretended to have killed “Memory Rick” and “Memory Diane” but instead set them up in a memory storage device. The finale was difficult to follow at times, but there is no doubt that it was a strong finish.

Then, episode seven was one of my favorite episodes of the series. “Ricker than Fiction” saw Rick and Morty watching the latest movie from one of their favorite franchises, “Maximum Velocitree,” but they responded with anger and vitriol. The dialogue was great as they were clearly mocking those people online who claim things like a certain movie “ruined my childhood” or some idiotic statement like that. They went to Warner Brothers to complain and came across James Gunn (yes, voiced by James Gunn himself).

They got into an argument with James Gunn and Rick decided to fix the next script to make it better. Rick designed a machine called the Movie-Lizer which can create a movie if given a script. It also allows the user of the machine to change the script easily. This is obviously a commentary on AI and its intrusiveness in the movie industry. Rick and Morty get sucked inside the Movie-Lizer and find themselves in the story, which they have to try to fix before it is too late. This is such a meta episode, but it is also remarkably funny and clever.

I loved the guest star voice of James Gunn who ran across Zack Snyder, who was also an actual voice for this episode. This unbelievably meta and hilarious encounter made me respect Zack Snyder way more. He was really funny and was allowing the script to give him crap.

The second half of the season was considerably more consistent and engaging than the beginning and “Ricker Than Fiction” is probably in my top 10 of all time.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E2

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“Spoiler: Zack’s in this One”

The second episode of The Big Bang Theory spin-off, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, is not very good. It just feels like it is a car wreck that I can’t stop glaring at.

The new universe that Stuart, Bert and Kripke jump into is an AI-Overlord run universe where everyone is forced into happy thoughts and any negativity would lead to an electric jolt into the person’s neck through an implant at the base of their skull. This joke was used what felt like a million times in the first fifteen minutes of the episode.

I have come to the conclusion that this show is designed to show us alternate versions of all of the cast of The Big Bang Theory in weird new ways. Here we get to see Zack, as the title stated, but also Penny. I’m not sure why Kaley Cuoco would agree to “reprise” her role as Penny in this, but it was nice to see her again.

It was strange to see Christine Baranski used in a cameo as herself when she had a Big Bang Theory character already.

The episode never got a chance to get any footing under it, because after the over excessive amount of the electric shock gags, they came across the rebellion, led by Zack and Penny, and then the episode was over.

While I did not love this… heck, I could probably not claim to even like it that much… Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is a short show that does not feel like anything that is aggressively bad… or at least, bad enough to make me stop watching it at this point. It was fun to see the Big Bang cameos (including the woman who was obsessed with Sheldon). I’ll watch at least one more episode, probably.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

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I am a massive Spider-Man fan. I am unapologetic about that. I expected that going into Spider-Man: Brand New Day this afternoon. Maybe I am not necessarily the most unbiased reviewer you’ll see. However, I have been consciously working on being more fair and balanced about MCU movies.

Having said that, I LOVED this movie.

Peter Parker is struggling with his isolated lifestyle after the world forgets that Peter Parker exists (thanks to the Dr. Strange spell). Peter has thrown himself into his Spidey work, teaming up with NYPD to help bring down the criminal elements of the city. A mysterious powered person brings a ton of chaos to the city, Damage Control and Spidey.

I am not going to spoil anything in my review at this point. I am going to try to cover these points as generally as I can.

Performances are top notch. Tom Holland does a remarkable job as Peter Parker, playing the sadness of his life has engulfed him in. I have heard a lot of reviews calling this a much more mature performance from Holland, and that is a perfect description.

Sadie Sink, lips closed on her character, was unbelievable from the moment she was on the screen. She is such an accomplished actor and I think she is going to be an utter star in the world of the MCU.

The relationship between Peter and Frank Castle, played by the wonderful Jon Bernthal, is one of the best ones in the film. I found their pairing to be so great, unexpectedly so. Bernthal and Holland have great chemistry with each other, which you also see in The Odyssey, that Spidey and Punisher, one of the biggest odd couples you’ll see, sparkle together in dialogue, especially.

We know from the trailers that the Hulk has made a return in this film and the scenes with Hulk and Spidey are some of the best of the film. The action is spectacular. Mark Ruffalo does a fabulous job in the role as Bruce Banner, and, after so many years playing the role (since Avengers in 2012), he has such a grasp on Banner.

The special effects and action in Brand New Day is some of the best of any of the Spider-Man movies. Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who brought such a gravitas to Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, shows us once again that he can handle action and fight scenes as well as anyone. There were a bunch of shots that were spectacular.

The film uses the supporting cast of previous Spidey movies, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, just about perfectly. You can feel Peter’s grief over the loss of them as friends and how he is struggling to move on without them. This is the best performance of Zendaya in any of the Spider-Man movies.

One would think that this movie would be packed too full with all of the characters and storylines, but that is not a problem. The film has extraordinary pacing that works so well.

The film showed Spider-Man in the way that I believe he should be shown. The choices he made and the story beats with the character is just the way Spider-Man is portrayed.

I loved this movie and I will be going back to it again. There are so many fun things in the film and I can not wait to see it again.

5 stars

The Muppet Show S2 E4, E5, E6, E7, E8

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Guest: Rich Little

Guest: Judy Collins

Guest: Nancy Walker

Guest: Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy

Guest: Steve Martin

Some fun episodes from the second season highlighted the Muppet Show rewatch today.

Starting with the Rich Little episode. Honestly, his imitations of the Muppets were fairly weak. I have heard many better over the years. I did enjoy the final number where Rich Little sang as famous celebrities songs from musicals including “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Did You Ever?,” and “I Remember It Well.”

That first episode also started Gonzo’s affection for chickens, as he was auditioning them for a dancing act. Of course, these were live chickens.

Judy Collins came next and she sang a whole bunch of songs. I guess when you have someone with her voice, you try and use it as much as possible. The performance of “Send in the Clowns” is one of the most iconic guest songs of the show. I enjoyed her version of “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” too. It was neat seeing her do a piano duet with Rowlf with “Do-Re-Mi.”

We get the backstage storyline with Scooter’s uncle J. P. Grosse, who is ready to tear down the theater to put in a parking lot.

The Nancy Walker episode saw Kermit at home sick and Fozzie trying to run the show. Things do not go well for our favorite furry funnyman. My favorite bit was the accidental mixing of Veterinarian’s Hospital and At the Dance. They worked very well together.

Edgar Bergen brought his ventriloquism act to the Muppet Show, which fit in beautifully. Charlie McCarthy was very smart mouthed when it came to the Muppets. It was a lot of fun.

My favorite number on that episode was the “Time in a Bottle” song where the old scientist was making a formula to turn him younger.

Then, the best episode of this chunk was with Steve Martin. They took the typical Muppet formula and flipped it around as Kermit cancels the show for the night because they accidentally scheduled it on a night when they were supposed to be having auditions. Kermit sent the audience home and they spent the time auditioning new acts.

Steve Martin stuck around to “entertain the boys” and did a bunch of fun things from his act, including balloon animals, banjo playing, doing “Ramblin’ Guy.”

Some of the new acts we saw audition included Statler & Waldorf singing/dancing to “Varsity Rag,” a little girl named Carrie Louise and friend (who was a frog, and she would sing while the frog added the word ‘ribbit’ to the songs), Baskerville the Hound and his comedy act that reminded us all of Fozzie Bear and Marvin Suggs and his All Food Glee Club.

The show had removed the laugh track since the audience was gone and we would hear just a few guffaws from, apparently, the Muppeteers.

I loved how they took the format and tried something totally different and it really was a fresh episode.

Hadestown: The Musical

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I have been a big proponent of filming stage plays and releasing them as movies, like they did with Hamilton and Good Night and Good Luck: Live from Broadway. I believe this would be such an awesome thing, allowing those who may not have easy access to Broadway plays and the such to see the magic of a stage presentation, not just a movie with the story adapted into a movie script.

So when I saw that there would be a Tony Award winner was doing this, I wanted to make sure that I made my way to the theater to see it, even though it was a play that I had never heard of before.

Hadestown: The Musical was filmed in London and tells an updated story about the classic Greek myth with Orpheus and Eurydice. It kind of mixed that story in with the Hades and Persephone myth as well. and it is placed within the present day.

I did not recognize any of the actors involved, but they were spectacular, as was the overall presentation of the show. I loved the way they presented this story. The circular moving stage, much like they had in Hamilton, was such a fabulous tool to tell this story, especially when Orpheus was walking out of Hades, unsure if Eurydice was behind him. I heard some people in my theater gasp when Orpheus turned around.

The music is amazing. I had never heard any of the songs from this musical, but the music was fabulous.

The performances that stood out the most were André De Shields, who played Hermes and heavily a narrator of the film, and Patrick Page who played Hades. Patrick Page’s voice was absolutely tremendous as the God of the Underworld. Most of the time he would speak through the songs and it worked so well for him. He was amazing in this role. In fact, he was wearing a boot during the show and I came to find out that he had ruptured his Achilles tendon before the filming. He was able to do his performance with the boot and, apparently, a few adjustments. That speaks a lot to Patrick Page’s dedication to the show.

Reeve Carney was Orpheus and Eva Noblezada was Eurydice. Amber Grey played Persephone. They were all great. Nobody had a bad performance.

I had goosebumps after the opening number and some tears running down my face at the finale. It was able to present a classic tale in an emotional, powerhouse film.

I want more like this.

4.5 stars

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #78

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The Boroughs

“The Grey Rebellion”

Hello, Mother.

Episode six of The Boroughs gave us a bunch of info on what was going on in this place.

Last episode, the whole crew of Sam, Art, Judy, Wally and Renee are captured by Blaine and given an ultimatum. Wally has to go to work for Blaine while the others are basically on house arrest. Can’t leave the Boroughs, ankle monitors, cameras in their houses, the full nine yards.

They have to accept this situation or they would be sent to the Manor. The whole situation has become quite sinister.

Blaine takes Wally to meet the whole crew behind the scenes of the Boroughs and want him to help save a patient… the person they call Mother, who was supposedly hatched out of an alien egg found decades before. This is the being who the monsters (they call The kids) who suck “brain juice” from the residents came from.

Sam can’t take the way things were so he decided to walk through the desert to the diner and call his daughter, Claire. He cuts off the ankle monitor and heads out.

Meanwhile, Paz and Renee plan up an escape attempt to correspond to the 75th anniversary celebration coming up. They are able to recruit Judy to the fold, but Art did not want to be part of it.

However, when Art discovered from Claire that she had committed Sam to the Manor after she picked him up at the diner, he changed his mind and joined the “Grey Rebellion.”

Renee, though, has altered the plan. She does not want to just run away, she wanted to fight. She had been told everything by Wally and she said that she wanted to get into the offices at the manor and kill Mother, to take it away from Blaine and his cronies.

Of course there would be more to this. At the end of the episode, we see Mother, and she appears to be human-ish. She was not a monster like the “Kids.”

You knew where Claire was taking Sam after she picked him up. I was disappointed that she did not believe her father and allowed Blaine’s manipulations to work in her mind from a few episodes ago. Clearly, Mother’s appearance will make it more difficult to kill as Renee wants to do. Mother also makes me feel as if she is less sinister than Blaine and his cronies. Has she been held captive all these years?

There is something more to Sam’s wife too. This is an arc that remains unanswered.

Next week is the penultimate episode of the series and things are really setting up to be a massive final two episodes.

The Odyssey

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The epic novel from Homer, The Odyssey, was released this weekend from director Christopher Nolan, fresh off his Oscar winning Oppenheimer.

I read The Odyssey in high school and so I am familiar with the story of the movie. I have been excited about seeing this since it was announced.

The very general story of The Odyssey was Odysseus (Matt Damon), after winning the war with Troy, tried to return to his home of Ithaca and back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland). The voyage back to Ithaca faced many serious issues and dangers from the Gods and monsters.

However, the story premise is deeper than just Odysseus trying to get home. It is a deconstruction of the heroic character archetype, diving deep into the choices of our main hero, and as well as the struggles of Penelope and Telemachus and the toxic suitors for Penelope’s hand in marriage.

The movie is an epic film, with amazing look and tremendous performances.

Matt Damon does a remarkable job as Odysseus. He dominated every minute he was on screen and his performance was layered with so much complex subtext. How much of a hero was Odysseus truthfully? I thought Tom Holland gave a top level performance too, with his dedication to trying to find his “dad.” Anne Hathaway was outstanding, especially in the last hour or so of the movie.

The rest of the cast was amazing too including John Leguizamo, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Mia Goth, and Benny Safdie.

While there is some CGI involved in the movie (Hey there Polyphemus), it is very limited and most of the film is practical. Because of that, it is such a beautifully shot film, with amazing shots at sea and the cinematography is so on-point that I was really impressed. You do not see films of this scale without a bunch of CGI these days, but Christopher Nolan is a director that limits the amount of CGI used on his picture.

The score was perfect too, building such a tone for every scene. Ludwig Göransson did the score for this movie and, quite possibly, could win his fourth Academy Award for this score, after winning for Sinners, Oppenheimer, and Black Panther.

The film is a touch long, though one is to expect that. The first half hour or so dragged just a touch, but it was a vital stretch to set up everything needed in the film.

While I am not as high on Christopher Nolan as a lot of people are, I will not deny that this is one of his best movies ever, if not his best.

4.8 stars

Rick and Morty Season Two

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I decided that I would start watching the Rick and Morty series as I did in the What We Do in the Shadows series. Since there are a limited number of episodes in each season and each were around 25 minutes, I decided that I would watch the whole season in one sitting.

Season two was the first season that I binged on HBO Max.

The first episode was “A Rickle in Time” where they picked up immediately when season one ended with Morty and Summer finished cleaning their house as time has been frozen. It winds up having multiple Ricks and Mortys and Summers since they were messing with time.

My favorite episode of the season was episode four, “Total Rickall” where an intergalactic parasite found its way into the Smith’s house and, by planting fake memories into the Smith’s heads, created people and creatures they believed were real. There was Mister Poopybutthole, Cousin Nicky, Sleepy Gary, Pencilvester, Tinkles the Fairy Lamb, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mr. Beauregard among others. It was such a funny episode.

Jerry and Beth’s marriage was a huge side story again. They even are taken to a planet for the most successful marriage counseling organization, which they destroy it with their toxicity. This was episode 7, entitled “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” The continue to be fighting and this marriage truly feels to be temporary.

Also in episode 7, we get “Little Rick!” Rick puts his mind into a younger clone of himself to help search out a vampire in Summer and Morty’s school (who was Coach Feratu). The vampire plot is mostly off-screen as it is the “Little Rick!” character that is focused. He shouted “Little Rick” very much like he would eventually yell out “Pickle Rick” in a later season.

“Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” was a sequel to the interdimensional episode from season one. This one was funny, but it felt like it was not as strong as the first one.

There are several moments of breaking the fourth wall in this season as well. These all worked pretty well including the one where Rick called “Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” a sequel, but he did not know why.

There were other parodies including an episode spoofing the movie The Purge.

There was a great cliffhanger at the end of season two with Rick turning himself in as an intergalactic terrorist in order to get Morty, Summer, Beth and Jerry freedom to return to the earth. The whole family had left earth to attend the wedding of Birdperson and Summer’s high school friend Tammy. Tammy turned out to be an agent of the Federation, killed Birdperson and arrested everyone. It was a cool twist and sets up the show for season three.

The Muppet Show S1 E15, E16, E17, E18

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Guest: Candice Bergen

Guest: Avery Schreiber

Guest: Ben Vereen

Guest: Phyllis Diller

Another strong run of four episodes of the Muppet Show consistently amaze me. I mentioned this earlier, but the material on the Muppet Show is so far advanced for a kids program that it goes to show you that you do not have to play down to kids.

In these four episodes, we got a song from Ben Vereen, Mister Cellophane, out of the Broadway play Chicago. Rowlf played a classical piano piece by Beethoven called Für Elise. The classic song Tenderly was performed in a distinctly rock format by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

Crazy Harry was all over these episodes. He was the running gag in the Ben Vereen episode, constantly blowing things up when someone made a comment connected to explosions.

Veterinarian’s Hospital was on all these episodes. This is a classic bit that the Muppet Show made famous with Rowlf, Miss Piggy and Janice. They told some terrible jokes and laughed at them all.

The Candice Bergen episode featured some of the songs I remember on here including “Put Another Log on the Fire” and Piggy’s “What Now My Love.” Candice Bergen was not singing, and I was thinking, “Oh so she is not a singer so they are not making her sing” and then she did “You’ve Got to Have Friends.”

Piggy tried to make Kermit jealous by pretending to have a relationship with Avery Schreiber, which seemed to work until Scooter let the cat out of the bag. During this, we learn Miss Piggy’s true name, Pigathias- which means “River of Passion.” Other running jokes included Fozzie trapped in a box, Fozzie doing the “I’ve got a ____ for Kermit the Frog” bit, and Hilda worried about her age and appearance.

Sweetums made several appearances in this block of episodes including where he ate Candice Bergen’s camera and had an insult-off with Sir Avery (Schreiber).

Moana (2026)

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Disney has been doing live-action remakes of their animated movies for decades now, but the most recent push of this trend started with Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Since then, we have gotten Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, The Lion King (although it is technically all animated), Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Snow White, and Lilo & Stitch. This weekend, the most recent of the animated movies to receive this treatment debuted in theaters.

Moana, the animated series was released in 2016, and just under ten years later, the live-action film was made and released.

I did not watch the original animated Moana before going to see the new live-action film, which was probably a good idea. I believe if I had watched the animation, I would have not enjoyed the live action version at all. Fact is that the Moana live action is a complete recreation of the 2016 animated version with almost nothing new, and it would have stood out even more had I watched the animated movie in preparation for the new film.

Another problem with the film is that the look of the new film is nowhere near as vibrant and magical as the animated film. This looked like they had a lot of the live action actors filming in front of a green screen or an animated background, which you can see easily. The best section of the film was in the middle of Dwayne Johnson’s song “You’re Welcome” when they animated everything.

Catherine Laga’aia as Moana was probably my favorite part of the film as I thought she was lovely and I could not take my eyes off her. Her performance was solid, and I believe she has potential to be much better in future projects. Laga’aia had a presence on screen that really worked for me.

Dwayne Johnson, who I love so much, felt much more underwhelming than he did in the animated movie. There were times when he was noticeably more thick in the waist and torso area than he was in other moments of the film making me think they did some CGI with him, or perhaps put a muscle suit on him. It was noticeable, and not in a good way.

The songs were all decent, except for “Shiny” by Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa. I thought that sounded terrible, so bad that I wondered if it was the theater’s sound system that was causing the problem. The other songs sounded fine so I am not sure why this standout song sounded so poor to me.

I did enjoy the live action dance sequences showing off Polynesian culture, especially in the opening scenes. I wish the backgrounds would have helped amplify the beauty of the dance, but it did not help it at all.

While it sounds like I did not enjoy this movie, I did like it. It is the same movie as 2016’s Moana, and I loved that movie. It does feel like the same movie, but with less of that Disney magic. If you have never seen the animated movie, this would be a sufficient remake, but if you have Disney + and have never seen the animated movie, watch that version.

2.9 stars

Scary Movie (2026)

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I was going to see The Invite at 4 PM today at Cinemark, but I wanted to do a movie in the afternoon to watch to waste the time. The movie that fit into that window the best was a movie that has been out for several weeks, but I had not seen. It was the new film from the Wayans Brothers, Scary Movie.

I was not sure if this was a movie that I wanted to see, because it just did not feel like it was a film that was in my wheelhouse. I had nearly gone a different time, but it just did not work out. So today would be the day for me to see the film from a previous franchise, returned to the public’s eye.

I definitely found a movie to waste my time with.

I hated the newest Scary Movie. Truly hated it.

The film parodied a bunch of horror movies over the last few years, specifically Scream as they used the Ghostface killer from that franchise. However, they also poked fun at It Follows, K-Pop Demon Hunters, M3GAN, Nosferatu, White Chicks, Sinners, Get Out, Wednesday (TV show on Netflix), Smile, The Substance, Terrifier 3, and several more. The problem was that none of the parodies had any cleverness to it and the writing was just poor.

The film was just drug jokes, dropping the n-word, sex jokes, and killing a bunch of people. None of them were funny at all. The only pieces that made me smile a bit were the meta jokes or the breaking of the fourth wall. However, they overdid these too.

I did not laugh at this movie and that is a sin for a comedy, especially a spoof film that has all kinds of leeway to be ridiculous. I was hoping that I would enjoy this with the return of the Wayans, but it was clear that I was just not going to.

1 star

Agents of Shield S7 E4, E5, E6, E7

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Spoilers

“Out of the Past”

“A Trout in the Milk”

“Adapt or Die”

“The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D”

This continues to be my favorite season so far, and the show has been taking some gigantic swings.

How about a whole black and white, noir episode? Coulson with the monologue over the scenes (which is an internal monologue), the cool mystery and the saving of Sousa, sort of.

Daniel Sousa was supposed to die in 1955 after he delivered an object to Howard Stark. Coulson said that he was a hero and that he was taught in SHIELD history. The team decided to save Sousa, fake his death (by using Coulson) and bring him with them in the Zephyr.

All in black and white.

Turned out, the black and white came from a malfunction of the Coulson LMD.

The next episode was into the 1970s and the show had a seventies style opening theme, with voice over introducing the cast.

It was clear that the writers had a freedom to come up with remarkable situations over the time stream and that they were having a hoot. There is drama, comedic moments and some great action.

Mack goes through a lot as his parents are killed and replaced by Chronicoms. He gets left behind with Deke in 1982. He spends a year mourning in isolation as Deke tries unsuccessfully to help him. Deke created a cover band…as a cover. The Deke Squad was his covert Shield group filled with weirdos and losers. Deke shows some real character development during these episodes and Jeff Ward is just remarkably funny. His dialogue is some of the series’ best.

Coulson destroyed his body in an explosion that killed the Chronicoms. Coulson wound up a Max Headroom-type character in 1983 with Deke.

Sousa and Daisy are growing closer as Daisy was getting tortured and experimented on by Nathanial Malick, who wanted Daisy’s powers transferred to him. He was able to do it, but he could not handle the new power.

It was awesome to have General Rick Stoner, played by Patrick Warburton, in his real body in the 1970s. Warburton played Stoner as a hologram when the Lighthouse closed up a few seasons ago. That hologram was based on a past Shield executive, and now we got to meet him.

Again though, Shield and the Chronicoms were playing havoc with the Sacred Timeline and I wonder what the TVA was doing.