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First Base

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First Base

By: The Rookie

“YOU’RE A FAILURE.” 

Eddie Fox, is a seven foot six inch beast. He was twenty six years old and still living in his dad’s basement. He had been practicing baseball since he was five years old, and part of his dream had finally come true. He made it to pro baseball. He was an outfielder so he doesn’t make money yet. He needed to support his dad and try to make him proud of his son again. With his mom bills piling up especially with the bills that his mom had put on them, this was his darkest time. He felt as if he had died or was going to die.

 He had been trying to make them pick him for first base. That was his other part of his dream. He had not been able to practice much because of his mom. So the first day of baseball Coach Brian said that Eddie was in the outfield. Then the dad said unencouraging things. It went like this.

“Eddie, you are outfield,” said Coach Brian.

“Of course you are. You always are. How did I have this big of a failure,” said dad.

Then in the outfield he met his soon to be best friend, Blake. He is 4 foot 9 inches and he is 24 years old. He had already accomplished his dream of being a catcher. Eventually a ball got hit toward him, and it did not end so well.

“I got it, I got it,” said Eddie. Cluck! “That is not good. What are my teammates and especially my dad?”

Then his practice is over and Blake went over and talked to Eddie. 

“Hey if you would have put your glove up higher and tilted it more to the side you would have caught it,” said Blake.

“Thanks for the tips and looking out for me, that is the first thing anyone nice has done for me,” said Eddie.

“What do you mean by that,” said Blake.

“Well my dad thinks I am a failure, disappointment, and did I mention a failure. My mom died in a car accident and the last thing she said to him was something like you were a failure and you will never be a pro baseball player,” said Eddie.

“That is pretty rough. Dad died from cancer when I was little and my mom has been the best mom I could have ever asked for,” said Blake.

Then after they were done talking Coach Brian pulled him to the side. That did not go too well for Eddie.

“Eddie, if you keep playing like this, I am going to have to kick you off the team,” said Coach Brian.

“Coach Brian you know how much I need this,” said Eddie.

“I know but the team would be better off if you were just gone. Unless somehow you improve in a month. It will be hard for you to improve because you are bad at baseball,” said Coach Brian.

“Can’t you see that I am trying, I have been trying since I was five years old. Trying to make everyone proud of me but it seems that no one cares about me except for one person, Blake,” said Eddie.

 Eddie walked away wiping his tears from his face with Blake slowly recognizing and coming to comfort him. Then Eddie thought of what his dad said, what his coach said, and what his mom said before the car accident. He never forgot what she said.

“You are such a failure,” said Mom.

 That is when his dad saw him. It was brutal to watch for Blake. Blake saw exactly how his dad treated him. Blake then knew that his dad thought Eddie was a nobody. So did everyone else except for him. Blake felt so bad for him. For a second when Eddie’s dad  looked at Blake and then back at Eddie he thought that he was going to kill the kid. Then all of a sudden Eddie’s dad raised his arm ready to strike him. Right as he was about to, Coach Brian caught his hand and punched Eddie’s dad right in the nose, breaking it.

“Thank you so much Coach Brian. You don’t know how much that meant to me. But now when he wakes up and comes to our house he is going to kill me.” said Eddie.

Then Blake ran over.

“He won’t because you are going to stay with me for a while,” said Blake.

“Are you sure you don’t have to,” said Eddie.

“Like you said earlier he would kill you,” said Blake.

“Okay, I will as long as it is not too much trouble for you mom,” said Eddie

“I think she will understand,” said Blake.

So Eddie started living with Blake and his mom. It turned out that Blake lived right by a baseball field so they practiced every morning. Eventually in a month he had practiced fives hours a day. Eventually, they both became really good at baseball.Then came the final day before Coach Brian said he could not do that. He ended up impressing Coach Brian so much that he got put on second base. Eventually, the next month he got put on first base. He was also making money now. A lot of it too. Then his dad came three months later. 

“Son, I am so proud of you. Do you think you could give me some cash,” said Dad.

“What do you mean? My entire life you said I was a disappointment or a failure. Now since you did not need me when I was at my lowest then I do not need you now,” said Eddie.

So in the end Eddie realized that he did not need his dad in the end because all he wanted was money. He also paid off all of the debt and with the rest of his money he spent on more important things. Something that matters to him like Blake. So Eddie also treated Blake with all the nice things in the world like watches, TVs, cars, boats, a house, and he gave them ten thousand dollars. Eddie was really proud of himself. Blake and Eddie were having so much fun at their fun job that they loved so much. From that day on they lived the happiest they had ever been.

The X-Files S7 E14

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“Theef”

There were a lot of controversial themes hidden in this X-Files episode. Okay, maybe not that hidden, but when the story swings on the choice of a doctor to end the suffering of a patient who could not be saved, it can create a lot of intrigue.

Picket Fences dealt with the concept of Euthanasia several times, but one would not expect it to appear on an X-Files episode.

The episode also featured “hexing” which seemed to be a backwoods form of voodoo, including the voodoo doll, called a poppet which was how the episode villain was using this pwoer.

The villain, Orell Peattie, was played by Billy Drago, and he was excessively creepy. He played the father of the girl who had been given the excess morphine by the doctor, Robert Wieder, played by James Morrison. Both of these actors did a great job in the episode.

The only issue could see was making Orell Peattie apparently not very highly educated, making the whole character a stereotype. The misspelling of the word “thief” being the title of the episode and something written after his victims.

I do not remember watching this episode when it first aired in 2000, but I did enjoy this one now. As I said, there were several themes in this episode that could be looked at deeper yet including not only Euthanasia but also modern medicine vs. practical magic.

Scully keeping Mulder on his toes is a fun moment in this overall creepy entry.

Dexter: Original Sin S1 E6

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“The Joy of Killing”

I have been disappointed with the new Dexter show since the first couple episodes. This new one, episode six, was the best one since the first two.

The show limited the amount of silly Dexter action, though there was some of that as he was getting his first blow job. Still, it was kept to a minimum and the cases were compelling.

The captain’s son was snatched much like the judge’s son earlier in the season. We met the captain’s son recently as he spoke with Dexter. That made this more powerful than just a kid who we had never met. The tension of the cop shop during this episode was at an all-time high.

I am not in love with the flashbacks, but these were fairly significant. We see the birth of Debra and Harry’s wife told him no more affair. Another awkward moment.

Dexter set himself up as a serial killer (officially killing his third victim). The alligator dumping was not going to work any longer as the police have discovered the arm floating in the swamp that we saw a few episodes ago. I figured that was coming back, and I am glad it made it.

Of course, Dexter is not going to be caught or even implicated because we know he does not get caught or implicated for years. The dangers of a prequel.

I hope the remainder of this season is able to match this quality more than it has been lately.

Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show (2017)

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Disney + is the home for tonight’s Genre-ary film, Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show.

According to IMDB, “this feature length documentary from director Josh Greenbaum (Becoming Bond, The Short Game) will take a fresh and irreverent look at the successes and humorous missteps of a show that brought together an amazing slew of future comedy giants before they were household names. Featuring interviews with Dana Carvey, Robert Smigel, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and more, the film will explore the creation of the show as the brainchild of two of Saturday Night Live’s most beloved alumni, the twists and turns of its brief life on air, and its legacy-one of stellar careers, lasting relationships, and an affirmation that in art, risks are always worth taking.”

The Dana Carvey Show was a sketch show on ABC that lasted just seven episodes. Dana Carvey was coming off the huge success of his time on Saturday Night Live and he was going to do a sketch show featuring a lot of counter-culture comedy.

The doc started with the creation of the show, and the hiring of the cast. The cast turned out to include Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, who would be major stars later. Robert Smigel, who was also the voice and creator of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, was one of the creative forces, along with Dana Carvey.

The doc was extremely funny as it had all of these comedians and performers speak on the reason this show collapsed and the process of making the show. You could tell that the creatives involved with The Dana Carvey Show really loved their time on the show, even if, in reflection, they understood what they were putting on the air was doomed from the start.

I was entertained by the memories and commentary of these funny people. It is a wonder that they failed so sensationally.

Dexter: Original Sin S1 E5

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“F is for F*ck Up”

Okay, the last couple of episodes of Dexter have been a bit lacking for my tastes. This episode, Dexter gets stoned eating some of Deb’s pot brownies. That whole section of the episode felt like it came out of nowhere and did not mean anything to the story. Outside of trying to build some connection between Dexter and Debra, there was not much more for it to be included in this episode.

Harry’s arc through the episode was inconsistent too. I am not sure I enjoyed either the flashbacks with Harry or his incompetence at the trial of Dexter’s soon to be next victim.

Having Harry end up on Dexter’s table, wrapped in plastic, did not convince me that the cop would accept this as a possibility from his step-son.

Dexter trapped with the horse was another silly moment in the episode, as was him tucking the horse’s hair behind its ear.

The best part of the episode continues to be Debra, and her attempts to have some relationship with her father and brother. After letting her down again, Deb went to her mother’s gravesite on her own, with a ride from her new boyfriend. They have sex in his car later in the episode as he seems very kind and loving toward her. I have a feeling that won’t stay that way very long. I hope I am wrong about that, but it feels like the cliched manner in which this story will go.

I have not been a fan of this show as much as I thought I would after the first couple of episodes. I hope it starts to improve soon.

Battlestar Galactica S3 E16, E17, E18

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“Dirty Hands”

“Maelstrom”

“The Son Also Rises”

I have not had the opportunity to watch many Battlestar Galactica episodes recently, so I decided to do a run of them tonight. I hope to try and wrap up season three tomorrow.

These were some wild episodes. “Dirty Hands” looked at the working class aboard the Galactica. Chief Tyrol was the intermediary in the episode as he was trying to help the people doing the horrible work keeping Galactica going. This was tough to watch because Roslin and Adama were brutal during the episode and they seemed really like the villains of the episode. When Adama told Chief Tyrol that he would have Cally executed if Chief did not call off the strike that he had initiated, I could not believe it. Of course, mere moments later, both Roslin and Adama were back all smiles and reasonable again. The whole story wrapped up in a third act switch, like it was a sitcom that had reached the end of the episode. It was a real whiplash effect.

Then was a shock. It was a Starbuck episode, featuring on the trauma in Kara’s past, including her relationship with her mother. The shock came at the end of the episode where it appeared that Kara flew her plane into a storm and it exploded into pieces, effectively killing her before the very eyes of Lee. LOST used to do this all the time, focus an episode on the back story of certain characters and then kill them off at the end. I do not know if this was the final episode for Katee Sackhoff and the character of Kara Thrace, but it sure seemed final. Kara had been in a downward spiral for quite awhile now and this felt like a fitting end to the character. I actually hope that there is no more sign of Kara Thrace outside of flashbacks. I have a feeling that we have not seen the last of Starbuck though.

Then, it seemed as if we focus in on Baltar’s lawyer. It was a weird episode where we have a new character named Romo Lampkin. Lee was assigned by Adama to protect him after the last lawyer for Baltar wound up dead from an explosion. The episode saw both Lee and Adama dealing with their grief over Starbuck in different manners. Of course, when Roslin was pulling random names out to form the tribunal for the trial of Baltar, Adama wound up on the panel, which was about as cliche as you are going to get. There is no reason why he should be anywhere near a tribunal in Baltar’s trial because, as we saw a couple of episodes ago, he was willing to shoot a woman as a “co-conspirator” to try and torment one of his friends into giving up a strike. He hid it under the guise of ‘following orders’ but it was a cruel use of extortion. I really get the feeling that Roslin just wants this trial over and I am not convinced that she will allow a truly fair trial to happen. Both Roslin and Adama are characters that I consider very much tainted since this season began, if not prior to it.

Season three has not been my favorite season so far. Perhaps it is because there is so much shade of grey in the storytelling, which I normally enjoy, but I would like to have a character or two that can rise above that. A character or two that I could really root for, knowing that they will always do what was right, and I do not thing that character exists currently on Battlestar Galactica.

Of course, the tension is always great and the acting is top notch, so there are still many reasons to love this show.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)

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January 1

It is January 1st, which means that I start the new Genre-ary event at EYG. This year, EYG will be doing the Genre-ary with documentaries. I will watch a new documentary, one that I have never seen before, every day for the whole month.

The first documentary I watched was one I saw on YouTube pundit Dan Murrell’s video of the Best Films of the Year. It was called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin and it sounded like an emotional film. I decided that I would use 2024 documentaries in the Genre-ary instead of waiting on them until the June Swoon.

With the set-up out of the way, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin was truly a beautiful documentary about a young man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who was able to find friendship, love and hope inside the gaming world of World of Warcraft.

Mats Steen, a young Norwegian boy, was diagnosed with the muscular disorder as a child and had to spend most of his life confined to a wheelchair as the disorder slowly restricted his motor skills.

One of the few things Mats was able to do was be on his computer. He found a community or guild, inside World of Warcraft, called Starlight, where he was able to meet others. Mats did not reveal anything about his condition to the people playing the game with him even after they had formed a close online relationship.

The doc uses the actual online dialogue used in the game to create an animated model of the online game. It uses this animation, in the World of Warcraft style, to show how important Mats, as the avatar called Ibelin, would become to the Starlight guild. The doc also used interviews with other guild members and family members of Mats as well as some home movies to build this picture of the young man.

Mats wrote an online blog near the end of his life that the doc used to illustrate more about the thoughts Mats was having. They had an actor read the blog entries in a voice close to Mats. Mats’ family did not know anything of this blog and, after his death, Mats had left the password to his family. This is where they started to understand how much their son had impacted the world through the video game. They posted on the blog that Mats had died and dozens of people responded to them, one of the more powerful moments for me during this doc.

The doc was not about a man who was slowly dying. This doc showed the power of life, friendship and of connections to others, even if it is not in the typical way. Mats had a short life, but his presence was felt by many different people in extremely powerful ways.

This was available to stream on Netflix. It is well worth your time. You may give a second thought to the viability of those kids spending time on their computers.

2024 Year in Review: Top 20 Worst Films of the Year

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We are up to the big year-end movie lists, and we start off with the Top 20 Worst Films of the Year. Of course, it would be a little more accurate for me to call this My Least Favorite Films because that is what it is. Film is subjective and what I think is the worst movie, you may love. That’s fine. You have the right to your opinion.

I have all the respect in the world for the movie makers but everybody has their failures. Even the films that I hate have my respect for their efforts. Some times effort just is not enough.

I should specify as well that the star ratings that I give when I review the movies through the year are basically used as a guide. This is not place in direct order via the star ratings. Plus, movie opinions can change over time.

This was the oddest Worst Film list of all time because literally, I was considering seven movies as the #1 Worst Film of 2024. I have never had that many films in real consideration.

2024 EYG Top 20 Worst Films of the Year

#20. Venom: The Last Dance. The final of the Venom trilogy is not a very good movie. It has a lot of silliness and a waste of Knull as a villain.

#19. Monster Summer. An eighties type of monster film with Mel Gibson that is just not very good. Mel Gibson really did not fit with this movie.

#18. Afraid. AI taking over one house at a time. Killer Alexa? This is a stupid movie and John Cho has been in much better movies that are similar to this one.

#17. Trap. M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film is so full of dumb plots as a serial killer takes his daughter to a concert. The cops set up a sting operation at the concert. There are so many things that make no sense in this movie that it stretches credibility.

#16. Joker: Folie a Deux. What a step down from the first Joker. And I did not love that first film. This “musical” was such a waste of potential. This sequel seems to take a crap on the first movie too, throwing away most everything that was done well in the first one.

#15. Imaginary. There have been a ton of bad horror movies this year. This is one of them. Chauncy the Teddy Bear is causing trouble for the little kid. Terrible and not memorable.

#14. Immaculate. Sydney Sweeney did not have a good year in my opinion. She was a nun here going into an Italian convent. I did not like this one at all and it was not easy to watch, but not in the good way.

#13. The Exorcism. Russell Crowe also did not have the best year. Here, he is an actor playing a priest, dealing with an exorcism on set of a horror movie. I found this to be repetitive and boring.

#12. The Watchers. Another failed horror film. A bizarre situation that makes little sense and these characters are so unlikable that I want them to be gotten. M. Night’s daughter directed this mess.

#11. Lisa Frankenstein. I was looking forward to this comedy, but it was not funny, mean-spirited and had characters that I disliked. Cruel writing and a lack of humor does not make this worth seeing. It was quite a disappointment.

#10. The Strangers Ch. 1. Why did we need this movie? The original Strangers was a decent movie. This was just a wasted prequel with stupid characters and jump scares. And that ending…

#9. Night Swim. Here is the first film I watched in 2024. It was such a stupid movie about a haunted pool. A haunted pool? Yup. That’s what I said.

#8. The Crow. Another movie that has no reason to exist. This is such a bad idea and, what was even worse was, it was boring. The Crow did not need a reboot. This was a horrendous choice.

#7. Tarot. We are starting off with the seven films in competition for the worst film of the year. Tarot obviously deals with the deck of tarot and terrible characters that I couldn’t care less about. Completely forgettable.

#6. Kraven the Hunter. The most recent of the Sony Spider-Man without Spider-Man movies include a great cast in a terrible movie. Kraven is one of the greatest Spidey villains, but this is one of the worst super hero movies in years (although there may be a worse one upcoming).

#5. Borderline. I would have thought this was going to end up much higher than five, which tells you about the films ahead of it. Another great cast, including Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, but no story, horrible dialogue and such a flop of an adaptation. Eli Roth directed this mess.

#4. Kinds of Kindness. I had a guy on X call me names because I hated this movie. I’m sorry dude, but at least it is not my least favorite movie of the year. I found the three basic stories that made up the film to be pretentious, obnoxious and misogynistic. I hated this film.

#3. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver. I hated the first film of this series from Zack Snyder even more than Part One and I did not think that was possible. It was dull, boring and filled with characters whom I disliked. And I do not want to wait for the Director’s cut.

#2. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2. Last year’s worst movie was this film’s first in the franchise. There was some chatter that this one was supposed to be better. Spoiler alert…it wasn’t. Although this is only the second worst film of the year, so I guess it could be considered a little better.

#1. Madame Web. Here it is… the film that survived the gauntlet of the horrible movies. This one took a C-level (more likely D level) Spider-Man character and put her in a film with horrible writing, horrible special effects, horrible villain, horrible ADR.. I could go on. Madame Web was a ridiculous film and even film star Dakota Johnson was putting it down before it had been released. Madame Web is the worst movie of this year.

2024 Year in Review: The Strangelove

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The Strangelove (Best Actor in Movie)

Previous Winners:  James McAvoy (Split), Denzel Washington (Fences), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Michael Keaton (Birdman), Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Ryan Gosling (Drive), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick…Boom), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)

We are up to Best Actor, which in EYG land means we are giving out The Strangelove, in honor, of course, of EYG Hall of Famer, Peter Sellers.

Honorable Mentions: Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain), Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice), John David Washington (Piano Lessons), Glen Powell (Hit Man), Justice Smith (I Saw the TV Glow), Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling), Channing Tatum (Fly Me to the Moon)

#10. Gabriel LaBelle (Saturday Night)

#9. Bill Skarsgård (Nosferatu)

#8. Sebastian Stan (A Different Man)

#7. Nicholas Hoult (Nosferatu)

#6. Andrew Garfield (We Live in Time)

#5. David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil)

#4. Ray Fiennes (Conclave)

#3. Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool & Wolverine)

#2. Hugh Grant (Heretic)

#1. Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown)

Timothée Chalamet was masterful as Bob Dylan, with his voice and his singing. He also played the guitar. An overall amazing performance. Hugh Grant played opposite his type in the awesome horror flick Heretic. Ryan Reynolds is now in the MCU with his brazen performance as Deadpool. Ray Fiennes is always awesome and Conclave is no exception. David Dastmalchian is perfect in his found footage horror film Late Night with the Devil. Andrew Garfield is a former winner of this award and is back with Florence Pugh in We Live in Time. Nicholas Hoult and Bill Skarsgård came out of Nosferatu. Sebastian Stan made this list and in honorable mention. Gabriel LaBelle played Lorne Michaels on Saturday Night!

What If…? S3 E7

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“What If the Watcher Disappeared?”

The penultimate episode of the series What If aired this morning on Disney + and it took a step back to the first season.

Captain Carter returned to the series that she had been a major part of during the first two seasons and she brought with her a group that was called The Exiles. This was not a group of Exiles like in the comics, but a group that was from the run of What If…?. The group featured Peggy, Kahhori, Byrdie the Duck and Goddess of Thunder Storm.

First off, Byrdie the Duck was the grown daughter of Howard and Marcy the Duck from episode four. Voiced by Natasha Lyonne, this is a whole on original character from What If… and then they teamed Byrdie up with the other major original character from season two of What If…?, Kahhori.

Storm’s arrival was also extremely exciting and well done. Voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith, the fan favorite voice of Storm from the X-Men’97 and animated series, Storm was hauling around Mjolnir and showing herself to be one big time badass. Having Storm in the show, and giving us a Storm that felt just like the Storm that we know was a wonderful treat.

The show’s beginning let us know that something was wrong as it was not the Watcher’s voice doing the narration over the opening credits. Instead, it was the voice of The Eminence who have taken Uatu prisoner, ready to punish him for his breaking of the Watcher Oath.

Peggy realized that the Watcher was in trouble and she decided that The Exiles needed to go to the Fifth Dimension to help the Watcher, but she did not know how they would do it.

Bring in… Infinity Ultron. The one individual ever able to go to the Fifth Dimension on his own. This is how the show returned to the first season, as Infinity Ultron was the big bad of that season.

I did like the fact that this Infinity Ultron had succeeded in his quest and, because of that, had an existential crisis. He realized, way too late, that destroying all life would not bring peace, that in order to have peace there must be life and to have life, you must have conflict.

This was a first part of a two-part finale for the series as the Exiles went to the Fifth Dimension to try and save their friends.

One more episode tomorrow for the series.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E7 What If the Watcher Disappeared?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier?

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

What If…? S3 E6

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“What If…1872?”

What If in the Old West.

Shang Chi and Kate Bishop make their returns to the MCU in this cool Western story as they chase after The Hood, a character that the MCU has not yet introduced (although he is coming in Ironheart next year).

The pairing of Shang Chi and Kate Bishop worked for me as they pursued the Hood for their own reasons. The show did keep the characters at a surface level, depending on your enjoyment of the previous uses of the character to pull you in. For me, that worked.

The action of the episode was top notch with some awesome animated martial arts fights. The opening scene featuring John Walker, voiced once again by Wyatt Russell, was a neat set up for what we were going to get.

Shang Chi in search of his sister, who he had believed had been taken by the Hood works as well. Having her be the Hood in the end was a nice twist that I did not expect.

Walter Goggins reprised his role as Sonny Burch from Ant Man and the Wasp. Here he was a very sinister second hand man to the Hood. To be honest, he was much more memorable here in What If that he was in Ant Man and the Wasp. I like that they brought him in for this role.

1872 was a limited Marvel Comics series that placed Marvel characters in the Old West. Steve Rogers was the sheriff of the town and Wilson Fisk was the big, bad businessman. Fisk wound up feeding Steve Rogers to the pigs in a scene that stuck with me since I read it. I do not remember much else about 1872, except for that moment. This What If…? episode did not include those characters but I could see it being something going on in another location in this world.

There are only two more What If…? episodes left. With the final scene being the other Watchers confronting Uatu, and his interference will be a major arc to wrap up the series. The Watchers have sworn an oath to only watch and to not interfere, but we have seen our Watcher interfere several times over the three seasons. I am curious to see how this will all wrap up. I know the trailer had Captain Carter and Kahhori in it, so I expect to see them during some kind of conflict with the Watchers.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

What If…? S3 E4

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“What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched”

Tell us this is the final season without saying it is the final season.

What If gives us a Howard the Duck/Darcy episode. They’re married and she gave birth to an egg.

What?

What If took one of the worst episodes from season one and gave it a sequel and made it one of the strangest, weirdest episodes of the entire run.

What If, the comic book, would have issues that were really bizarre because they could do anything they wanted, and this is a perfect example of that.

I do love Howard the Duck and I would be all for a Howard the Duck series, live action or animated. This did feel a bit much.

There were a bunch of surprising cameos from the people chasing after this egg including Zeus, Thanos and the Black Order, Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, Dark Elves, the Grandmaster …all in pursuit of this egg.

I will say that I found this to be too silly at times and that a lot of the humor did not work for me, and I am a person whose Marvel’s humor almost always works. This might be an episode that I like more on second watch, but for now, this episode was down my list.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

A Different Man

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As the year is coming to an end, I went to Fandango At Home to see if I could find several films that I missed during 2024. I picked up a few rentals to watch over the next couple of days. The first one I watched was A Different Man, an A24 film starring Sebastian Stan and directed by Aaron Schimberg.

According to IMDB, “Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, but his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.“

There are many A24 films that are like this one, though different. There are wild, bizarre situations that seem to be taken in a normal, typical way. In this case, there is a sci-fi technique that led to Edward, who had Neurofibromatosis- a genetic condition that sees tumors grow on the body, to fixing his face, and it just was a way to change his appearance in the film.

Stan was excellent as the twitchy, malformed Edward. His change of facial appearance did not truly change him at all. It just opened some areas up to Edward, but he was just as uncertain and shaky as he ever was.

Adam Pearson played Oswald, another misshapen man, who brought himself into the play Edward was working in and kind of took over the stage. Pearson was amazing in the role and he had a complex character who seemed to be trying to take over the play while still being extremely likable.

Renate Reinsve played Ingrid, the playwright who had lived next door to Edward, gave a fantastic performance. She was very compelling with her relationship with Edward and Oswald.

I thought this was a very interesting film that was difficult to watch at times. The scenes where the tumors were being peeled off Edward’s face was horrific. Still, it is interesting that the film clearly is saying that the looks were not going to make everything better and that Edward regretted his decision in the end. Sebastian Stan did a great job in this role.

3.75 stars

2024 Year in Review: The Gomers for the Biggest Surprise

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2024 had plenty of films that fell into the middle of the range between good and bad. Honestly, however, it had a bunch of films that were surprises too. Thus, we have this year’s Gomer Award being quite a challenge to present. There are so many potential choices.

The Gomer for the Biggest Surprise

Previous Gomer Award Winners:  The Gift, Ferdinand, Edge of Tomorrow, We’re the Millers, The Campaign, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Bumblebee, Crawl, Greenland, Free Guy, Deadstream, Totally Killer

Here are the runners-up:

First off, Late Night with the Devil from David Dastmalchian was a huge surprise because it just was something that I had not heard much from. I did hear Kevin Smith mention it on an episode of Fatman Beyond, but still. for it to be one of the best of the year, who saw that coming? Then, since I disliked the original film, who would have guessed that a new version of Roadhouse starring Jake Gyllenhaal that went immediately to streaming would be any good. It was and I couldn’t believe it. Another one that was a reboot of sort from a movie that I did not like was Twisters. No way that was a film I was going to enjoy and yet I did. Abigail was a surprise until I realized that Alishia Weir was the star. I knew it was going great after that. Hit Man was another I saw on streaming that had no right to be as good as it was. It’s the second film on the list from Glen Powell. Sharks in Paris? No way that was anything other than a member of the worst movies of the year list, right? Wrong. Under Paris was a lot of fun and way better than it should have been. Longlegs provided one of those shocking moments in the theater when you discover that Nicolas Cage was going to go over the top and still be awesome. I spoke about how much I was surprised that I enjoyed The Best Christmas Pageant Ever as I was trying to find an award for Best X-Mas Movie. Skincare? Another one that had no appeal to me that turned out to be fully entertaining. Strange Darling was weird, but really wonderfully constructed and engaging.

Yet after all of this, one film was the biggest surprise of the year. Spoiler for an upcoming Batman and Robin Award for Rottenness winner, this film one of the worst trailers of all time and nearly caused me to skip the film. Little did I know that this is probably a top 10 film of the year (certainly in consideration, at least).

Transformers One

This was an amazing movie and was one of the best animated films of the year. I never thought making Optimus and Megatron friends when they were younger would work. They weren’t Charles Xavier and Magneto, and yet this was done so well that everything made perfect sense. After so many years of utterly hating Transformers films, loving this one, especially after that horrendous trailer, was totally unexpected… and thus a Gomer winner.

PS: Interestingly enough, this is the second Transformers movie to win this award, with Bumblebee being the other. The original Transformers movies brought the bar so far down that I have trouble seeing them as a positive thing.

What If…? S3 E2

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Spoilers

“What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?”

Now that’s more like it.

While I liked the previous What If…? episode of season three, I did not love it. Season two I ADORED just about everything about this one.

Agatha Harkness and Kingo? Who knew that I needed that in my life?

Golden Age of Hollywood with Agatha making a gigantic, cosmic blockbuster with Howard Stark (and the ever quippy Jarvis) is amazing, but to tie that into Agatha’s latest plot to grab power for herself by way of stealing the power of the growing Celestial inside the earth, Tiamut, is on another level.

There is a dance battle, literally, between Agatha and Kingo. All the while Howard Stark is shouting out some of the funniest dialogue you are ever going to hear.

“I want Busby Berkeley to see this and contemplate being a realtor“

“Will they dance? They will!“

“That chemistry was hotter than the Hindenburg.“

“Is that some kind of euphonism? Are you two a thing now?”

Howard Stark and Jarvis made the perfect Old Hollywood director behind the scenes for this What If…? episode. The quips delivered wonderfully by both Dominic Cooper and James D’Arcy. Jarvis’s initial dry wit fit beautifully in the insanity that was going on around him in this episode.

The fact is this… Kathryn Hahn is a master. She ahs taken this secondary (maybe even tertiary) character of Agatha Harkness and made her something special. Kathryn Hahn’s aura is all over this episode and she just dominated every minute, and she had amazing chemistry with Kumail Nanjiani. These two characters worked so well with one another and who saw that coming?

The dance routine was brilliant. I loved it. The design of Celestial Agatha was beautifully perfect. Her battle with Arishem the Judge was a great call back to WandaVision. The end speech from Kingo targeted what was missing inside Agatha all along.

This episode is very meta with several behind the scenes comments and a reference to Cecil B. DeMille. For me, this all worked so well that I just sat on my couch with a big smile on my face the entire time.

I would put this episode of What If…? right at the top of the series along with the season one Dr. Strange episode, the season two Christmas and 1602 episodes. Certainly the best of season three so far and potentially one of the best of the entire run.

Season Order So Far

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?