Category Archives: Television / Movies

All The Discs

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There’s a meme out there with a picture of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan saying, “why of course, it’s me…”

I know that’s a hash of a misquote, but you get the idea.

Found it~

Using a physical DVD to watch a film. Yep, I know that guy, because it’s me. I’ve been one of the red envelope people subscribed to the Netflix DVD service for the past 12 years. It was an easy choice for me. Advertising and unreliable connection speeds meant I could watch what I had on hand without any fear of it failing to work or having the feel of a film wrecked by mid scene advertising… almost all the time. Yes, physical media does have issues. Yes, from time to time there would be a problem, but for the most part it was a fantastic albeit slow system. In all those years I can only think of a handful of times when either the disc was broken or didn’t work, and only once in all that time when I got frustrated enough to just digitally rent a movie when the disc failed – and that was because it failed about 60% of the way through a really good movie.

Now that system is gone.

Yesterday, Netflix DVD made their last shipment. After 25 years (for them) they’re done, and I am feeling a bit nostalgic about the whole thing. The discs have been one of a very few constant things over the years. I was able to pull down a PDF file, created by the Netflix folks, that has my history all packaged up and presented in a report. I haven’t crunched numbers for averages or anything like that, but I have looked at the list of more than 250 rentals I’ve had over that time (quick math, 250/12 = about 20 discs a year or just under 2 per month). I looked at the stats they’ve stacked up for me and wandered down the list of discs we’ve watched, remembering the stories and characters from all those movies.

It’s going to be a minute for me to process the whole thing, but I will miss it. That probably sounds weird, but it has been part of my life for more than a decade. It became something that was just there when I needed it. Recently the streaming services available to us, combined with a more stable internet experience and less available time, in general, have made streaming services far more convenient and my rental rate has fallen off. Sometimes it would be weeks before I could put together the time to sit with a friend or a family member to watch whatever it was we ordered up. Sometimes the streaming service would add the movie before we got to the disc. I’d package up the disc and send it back, eagerly waiting for the next one to arrive. It was there, and it happened when I wanted it to. My viewing experience was not subject to some vague streaming contract a studio made, nor allowed to change based on some other, unknown reason.

The best example I can think of to illustrate that off hand is Monsters, Inc. and how it’s shown on Disney+. My daughter and I sat to re-watch it the other day because it had been a very long time since we watched it originally and we were in just the right mood. We pulled it up on Disney+ and let it roll. When we got to the end we wanted to see the extra bit at the end where the company is putting on the play Mike and Sully improvised during the movie… and it wasn’t there. It was just gone. I was a bit sad, but she was downright outraged. “How dare they? This is unacceptable and look it up on YouTube right now so we can watch it!”. I think that encapsulates the whole thing. The nutshell version – streaming decided to revise history a la 1984 and the modern viewer simply slid over to another streaming service and looked up the part they knew should be there (legality of it all be damned).

So the service is gone, but physical media still exist. I’ll still be watching those, and definitely picking up my favorites in physical form so I don’t need to depend on some company deciding if Ponyo should be available or not. Yes, it takes up space on the shelf. Yes, it’s an outdated method for watching things, but it’s mine and I’ll do with it as I please.

Apparently the folks at Netflix were feeling a bit nostalgic as well. They captured the whole feeling in a quick video… now available from a streaming service.

Unexpected Pairing

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I realized this morning when asked about how my Friday night went that there was an unexpected (possible) connection to the whole evening.

In the next town over there was a really fantastic Chinese restaurant. We ordered food from them for years and years. We would go and pick up food in person. We presumed the kids that were always at the restaurant, and eventually running the front counter interfacing with the public were the children of the owners. They had the best General Tso’s in the area and were frequently voted to the top of local ‘best of’ lists.

One day, they closed. Zero public explanation, just gone. A sign hanging on the door ~ “CLOSED”. A lot of people I know felt we were owed some kind of reason after years of dedication to the business. (We’re not, but you can’t tell people how to feel.)

Last night my wife and I went to the new diner that opened using the same building the Chinese place used for so many years. It’s new, so it was going to draw attention. A friend went and recommended the burgers. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but when we got there I was surprised at how… not busy it was. Friday evening at 6 a new place around here tends to have lines and waiting. We walked in and were seated immediately.

The place was clean and refreshed. The interior layout was slightly modified (not a lot of space for change really) and it was brighter than I recall it ever being.

The staff was new and it was clear there were one or two little things still being figured out. The food was… good, but not so amazing that I’m rushing to tell everyone I know. I will say, the onion rings were amazingly light and wonderful. I’m going to have to go back and try them with a burger. All in all, a solid “good” for going out to eat.

When we got home we sat down and dialed up the latest Pixar release streaming at home. The movie “Elemental“. As with so many films like this – anthropomorphic – it’s a land where the elements (air, water, earth and fire) all live in a city together. Without spoilers, at the core, this is a love story. The love story is set in / wrapped around an immigration story. An immigration story of a kid that may or may not actually want to take over the family business…

Once it clicked, it made me both content to not know the disposition of the former take-out restaurant and hopeful that the family involved got to a place equal to the happy ending of the movie.

You Should Be Watching – RETRO REVIEW

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This post was originally published in Watch The Skies June 2023 edition.

Andromeda Strain (1971)

I’ve been going back and re-watching some older science fiction films, or in some cases watching them for the first time. I had never seen The Andromeda Strain so I grabbed some popcorn and hit play.

There are a number of things I noticed while viewing this 50+ year old film.

There are aspects of the film style that place it squarely in the era of the late 60s / early 70s. Unavoidable things like changes in film making, the quality of the picture (at least compared to modern, high definition sets), special effects without CGI and updates to sound. There are minor turns of phrase that might raise eyebrows today. Some things the characters say or how they respond to things can be very different than a viewer of today would expect.

Beyond simple style or dated cultural issues there is technology. Some tech you simply can’t avoid seeing changes in. Cars, helicopters and planes are all mechanical items that we have contact with or at least passing familiarity with, so those are easy things to spot. Interestingly, the computer technology has made an unexpected change. In part, the attempts to be ‘futuristic’ have made of the tech in the movie actually look spot on to things we have today. Using a stylus on a computer screen in 1971 was so far in the future as to seem unreachable or at least something movie goers wouldn’t expect. These days we have a stylus for our personal tablets and phones that are so common we barely think twice about losing them. The computers themselves were a surprise to me. The ‘main frame’ driven tech is very old in the way the movie makers were likely thinking of it, but to those outside the computer industry it’s almost passable as an AI or super computer, so it would still fit the bill as ‘science fiction’.

Certain special effects make me wonder if the film makers actually killed lab rats and monkeys to get this movie made. Those scenes were definitely not for the squeamish. Any scene like that today would require disclaimers at the start of the film and would be ruthlessly scrutinized. I didn’t see the note at the end of the credits stating that no animals were harmed in the making of the film. Perhaps I missed it.

The version I watched had an interview with Michael Chriton. I was fascinated to hear about his drive and sense of humor (one of his pseudonyms meant dwarf when he was actually 6′-9” tall). The scope was broad for this movie but still had a tight run time. There’s a more modern (2008) remake that was broken into two 90 minute films, but I suspect it won’t land on my watch list. If there’s such a thing as a spoiler alert for a 50 year old movie, this film is a bit of a downer. The biological space thing escapes into the world at large. It is mutated and non-lethal, but it’s out there and there’s a secret science department in the government working constantly to stop it from mutating and killing people again. That part was a lot less entertaining after living through the pandemic and seeing how people reacted.

In the end, I’m glad I went back and checked out this classic. It’s good to have a sense of where things come from, knowing the roots of thing. If you’ve got the chance, you should watch this version of the film.

Check out the trailer HERE

You Should Be Watching

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Jung_E

This was originally published in Watch The Skies April 2023 edition.

In another dystopian future entry, the Korean film Jung_e presents some very real questions about what developing A.I. means and presents a picture of how that can effect the people most closely related to any project connected to that development.

The earth has warmed, the waters have risen. Humans have moved off the earth to various space platforms. Three of these platforms band together and declare war on the other platforms. In an attempt to create a winning edge, the allied forces take an elite soldier and attempt to clone her brain. This cloning is intended to create a soldier with all the skills, subtlety and loyalty of the original soldier in an easily replicated way. These clones will turn the tide and win the war for the allies. The experiments continue to run into an unknown obstacle, frustrating their attempts to complete this new A.I. soldier.

There are a number of pieces that are drawn into the film. I see a little bit of Robocop in there. I see a little bit of Ex Machina. There’s a touch of Ghost In The Shell. These are the things I see mixing and swirling around the story of the soldier and the doctor working on creating this new brand of soldier. It brings up a number of questions, but doesn’t necessarily answer them. This is a movie worth watching for the discussions it will give you after watching, along with a couple of very exciting action sequences. You should be watching Jung_E.


You should check out the trailer here:

You Should Be Watching

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Hot Skull

This was originally published in Watch The Skies March 2023 edition.

The main character

I didn’t go looking for this show, but then when I found it I was in. I don’t find shows about deadly plagues nearly as interesting these days, but this show managed to bring me in.

Hot Skull is a dystopian story involving a new, terrifying pandemic called ‘Jabber’. It’s called this because the first symptom is the victim speaking gibberish. This pandemic has caused panic and an authoritarian agency has taken control, herding people into various locked communities and using armed troops to enforce curfews and quarantines. The antagonist is a man named Murat who struggles against this agency, as he seems to be immune to the effects of the disease. Everyone wears noise canceling headphones and eye each other with suspicion while out in public.

The story is dark. The characters are very real. There aren’t Hollywood stereotypes at play here… this is a Turkish language series. Yes, subtitles but worth it. Looking at a pandemic from a non-American point of view is just one aspect of this show that makes it worth the effort.


You should check out the trailer here:

The Let Down

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I tend to stick to genre related things when I have down time and want some entertainment. My downtime is relatively limited so I want to go with things that look or feel like something I would find enjoyable. Often, I put movies or shows onto a list (watch later, or whatever the particular service calls it). Then, as most people do (I suspect) I go and watch many things that are NOT in fact on my list. Occasionally I’ll go back to one of the lists and pick up something I’ve been meaning to watch. Something that strikes the “I’ve been meaning to watch that…” chord.

Yesterday, I went back and pulled Dragon Blade off one of those lists. A sort of historical looking action/sword fighting movie with Adrian Brody, John Cusak and Jackie Chan. Great line up, right? The movie being something about Romans attempting to lay some kind of claim to the silk road. Cool. Has to be cool… right?

No. Not so much.

I’m not going to review the movie here. It was a mess. There’s a reason you haven’t heard of it. In fact, I’m not going to link to the trailer for this thing either. Do not recommend as the meme goes. What I will say is that it’s such a let down to wait and wait until what feels like just the right time (sword fighty Saturday matinee, amiright?) and then just get let down.

Do you find your level of expectation having an impact on how you feel about a show or film once you’ve finished watching it?

You Should Be Watching

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Lockwood & Co.

This was originally published in Watch The Skies February 2023 edition.

The main characters

Lockwood & Co. was a complete surprise. It was not a show that was on my radar, and I knew nothing about it when I started watching. I sat down with the family and we watched almost the whole season in a single sitting. Yes – the show caught us and we binged it.

Lockwood & Co. is a supernatural detective thriller story set in an alternate world where ghosts have come back to this world and can kill those still living. The only ones able to detect the ghosts are the youthful members of society who have some kind of psychic abilities. These kids are lined up at various agencies that investigate and remove ghosts. Lockwood & Co. are one of the newest of these agencies, and we follow psychic Lucy Carlyle as she joins up with this company.

The show has a great, quick pace. The characters are fun and believable as people. The chemistry among the lead actors is fantastic. You like them and you’re rooting for them right away. Through various ups and downs the first season is tight and clean. Be warned – the end of many episodes are the sort of cliff hangers that demand you watch the next episode right away. This is definitely one you should be watching.

Check out the trailer here:

You Should Be Watching

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The Colony

This was originally published in Watch The Skies January 2023 edition.

The film makers captured ‘bleak’ very, very well.

This month is much more in line with what many people traditionally think of as science fiction. The movie The Colony on Netflix is a far future dystopian film. It’s grey and gritty. The action starts right away.

In the distant future, the elite of earth flee a dying planet, making a new home on a distant planet. This new home proves to have road blocks to humans continuing to create more humans, so a mission is sent back to earth to determine if having the colonists return is viable or not. The previous mission has not communicated back. This is the second mission, and it struggles right from the start.

The movie has a little bit of the Mad Max feeling with marauders and technology scrapped together from the past. It also has a little bit of Water World with everything being effected by a sea level that has risen enough to make everything wet and endangered by the tide. The futuristic space technology gives our hero a little bit of an edge, but she is outnumbered and spends a significant part of the movie struggling just to survive.

I think that struggle is the part that wins me over. This is not a macho, blow things up kind of survival. It’s a thought provoking, yet action packed movie with diverse concepts and problems that require the characters thought and reason, rather than simple actions. This is definitely one you should be watching.

Be sure to check out the trailer here.

You Should Be Watching

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Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

This was originally published in the Watch The Skies November issue.

I’m doing two things with this recommendation that I wouldn’t normally do. First, I’ve not finished all of the episodes of the show in question. Second, it’s a little bit of genre mixing but there’s enough quasi Lovecraft in what I’ve seen to make me thing readers here might be interested. What am I talking about? Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix.

To the first point, having watched the first two of the eight episodes, I feel confident in my recommendation. There is a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe as each story has an introduction at the physical representation of the cabinet. The stories have been well written and paced for a shorter time frame, with episodes averaging around an hour (the shortest being 38 minutes, the longest at 1 hour and 3 minutes). The special effects are well done, in that they don’t detract from the story. I think that says a lot in the day and age where the computer is leaned on so heavily for effects that it can have a negative impact on the story telling. Beyond the actual effects is the aesthetic of it all. This show is appealing on the strictly visual level. The details are not lost in this show.

To the second point, it’s the little details. Giant rats, summoned demons, and statues of great Cthulhu (in a blink and you miss it moment) are among the things that lead me to genre mix here. There is nothing expressly or specifically “science fiction” in this show, but there is a lot of the fantastic and I think that’s worth taking a look at.

I intend to follow through and finish all the episodes. I think you should be watching it too!

You should check out the trailer here

Trailer Time

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Once upon a time I used to like to be sure to get to the theater early when going for a movie. I wanted to see all the new movies that would be headed out soon. It was something exciting. Something unexpected could pop up. You never knew, really.

In the current age of on demand everything, trailers for shows and movies are almost constant. I don’t rush to the theater at all – even for the films at this point. It takes something special to make me want to endure dealing with everything that goes along with sitting in a dark room with random strangers to watch a movie. The experience is frequently less than ideal.

I’ve stopped being excited about movie trailers too. On a good day, the creators of film can make an amazing 2 minute film. Most days the either misinterpret the story, sell the wrong point or give away all the best parts just to get you to go see the movie and be disappointed. IF you can slip past the spoilers and see something that actually looks interesting, there is an additional culture now that takes frame by frame screen shots and attempts to dig in and find all sorts of things to be happy/upset/curious about. Then judge the film before it is ever seen based on 3 frames that are pointed out a year before the release date. I am SO not interested in all that. Not at all. The joy has gone away.

Some time ago I was asked how I felt when the very first LOTR series trailer dropped. I waited. I decided I wanted to let all this stuff sit and digest a little. It’s easy to have strong reactions and immediate thoughts. Taking your time and putting thought into it will help decide just how important that strong reaction might be in the long run. If you were upset or interested before, are you still? Just yesterday (as of this writing) the new trailer for the Dungeons and Dragons new movie came out. The reaction culture raced to be the first to comment. I will admit – I did acknowledge this trailer on social media. It’s difficult to skip talking about something you really love. Now I’ve got ‘extra’ trailer bits to discuss.

I’m a fan of the LOTR and some of the film works based on Tolkien’s books. I despise the vast majority of that mess they claim is a trilogy about a hobbit and his journey to the lonely mountain. It’s an abomination and should be stricken from the record. And now it looks like various stories, notes and bits from places like The Silmarillion are being mined and shaped into a series.

I love Dungeons and Dragons and have for a very long time. My disappointment with the last big budget movie with the same title has echoed for twenty years now. I can still clearly picture lipstick bad guy and the horror of seeing the Wayans brother just camping out in there. They’ve waited two decades and now they’re trying again. This fills me with trepidation. It could all go so horribly wrong. The new version has Chris Pine you say. The last one had Jeremy Irons. He’s an academy award winner… and it didn’t help.

So now both of these properties are making headlines with new content. There are big names, big action and all sorts of fantastical things racing across the screens. How do I feel about them? A just question. Late is the hour in which we discuss an old trailer (couldn’t resist mangling the quote).

Bandying crooked words.

My feelings are mixed. On the one side, I desperately wish film makers would continue to adapt different works and stop digging back into the same stories over and over again. A good example was the (relatively) recent Shadow & Bone series on Netflix. A fantasy work that is not something that has been done to death (looking at you Robin Hood) and had budget and production value to create something enjoyable. There are hundreds of choices out there… but we’re digging into Tolkien’s old notes to create something so they can say, “Look! Hobbits! You like Hobbits, right?”. It’s not something that’s going to make me happy.

On another side, just look at all the wonderful fantasy that’s out there to pick from! Magic, dragons, sword fights… it’s an embarrassment of riches. There’s so much I have to be picky about what I see, how soon I see it and how much I watch. There aren’t enough hours in the day to consume all the coolest things. I can’t wait to see all the crazy stuff that comes out of the D&D movie. There will be an entire generation of players that will pick druid as a character class, just to wildshape into an owlbear.

On a third side, (this is why I didn’t use hands – polygons give options for sides) I’m afraid this glut of fantasy we’ve been living in is going to cause the dilution of something good. There will be so much that far lower quality things are going to start sneaking in (yes, as they have for ever) and with that interest will fade. When interest fades, the money walks away and THAT is what causes films to not get made. In the end, Hollywood movie studios are in business to make money and if we’re not buying they’re going to sell something else.

On the square side… I’m thrilled to have this kind of stuff out there. I’ve written before about the negative impact the Satanic Panic and all that bunk from my childhood had. Fantastical film and storytelling at this scale was never something imaginable when I was a kid. The shear variety of options is glorious.

Eventually I will devour all of these things. I will rage about some and praise others to inappropriate levels. There will be fan art and philosophical discussions. I’m still a fan after all.