Category: TV Shows
Stranger Things: Take Me Back to the Good Ol’ Creepy Days of the 80’s!
I’m quite excited about this cool new Netflix original series coming out July 15th! ‘Stranger Things’ has all of the vibes of those amazing Amblin style adventures that I grew up with as a kid. Judging from the trailer we’re getting a bit of an E.T., Poltergeist, Close Encounters and even a bit of a Goonies feel to this series.
The kind of movies where the heroes were kids in danger, the adults just wouldn’t believe a word they’d say, kids would cruise around unsupervised on BMX bikes trying to solve crazy mysteries. There’s something special about those movies that many directors over the recent years have tried to capture in movies like JJ Abram’s ‘Super 8’, Krampus and recently ‘The Midnight Special’. Add one of my biggest 80’s crushes, Winona Ryder to the mix and it so far looks like a surefire hit.
I just heard about this today as it kinda just came out of nowhere it seems but it’s one series I’ll be checking out the day it drops see the trailer for yourself and lets cross our fingers that this one captures the mystery of those old Stephen King classics!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxyRG_tckY
Five Classic Villains For Netflix’s Daredevil & The Defenders!
I haven’t quite made it through the entire season two of Netflix’s Daredevil yet but I’m slowly chipping away. So far so good though, I dig the first season more but this one’s still a good time. One thing I’m hoping for is an appearance by one of Daredevil’s classic villains. Some of them clearly might not work with the show’s more serious tone, say like Stilt Man or Mister Fear might not feel right on the Netflix show which is much more grounded in reality than the Marvel movie universe. However this show is in need of more real villains. So here are five villains I think would be perfect for the show and The upcoming Defenders series (I left out Bullseye because of course we all know he’d be on the list automatically) :
TOMBSTONE:
This guy would be perfect for the show’s more serious street level tone. If they could bring the sinister albino giant to life on screen I think it’d be quite a spectacle. I think of a classic battle much like the incredible Bruce Lee Game of Death sequence with Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Tombstone has a past with Hell’s Kitchen in the comic books and he’d make for the perfect bad guy in season three!
TYPHOID MARY:
We all know that Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock gets involved with pretty much every and any beautiful woman on screen. It makes me feel a bit bad for Foggy, but whatever I guess Matt’s just too sexy for his own good somehow which leads me to Typhoid Mary. Continue reading
Merry Christmas With Tales From The Dark Side, The Twilight Zone, Sherlock Holmes and More!
It’s Christmas eve! We’re all set tonight for Christmas to get cozy and wait for Santa to come squeeze down our chimney, but what to watch tonight while we wait? Do we choose the usual classics?
If you’re like me you might be looking at adding a few different selections to the agenda tonight here’s some suggestions!!
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Christmas Pudding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQx2u-B150
The Twilight Zone: Night of the Meek (This isn’t the full episode)
That Tales From The Dark Side Christmas Episode: Seasons of Belief!! Continue reading
Herve Villechaize: The Pop Star?!
I’ve loved the show Fantasy Island when I was a kid, it always managed to scare the shit out of me! You know I’ve recently watched several episodes of the show again and it still totally holds up. A super cool concept and a killer cast-which brings me to one of it’s legendary characters “Tattoo” played by Herve Villachaize. He etched the phrase “Ze plane, ze plane” into people’s minds for all of eternity!
But a little known fact about Herve was that back in 1980 he had a small musical career too! Yep in the middle of his incredible success with Fantasy Island he recorded a single for Epic Records. Turns out Herve was also quite a crooner with some seriously rad style.
The single featured two tracks “Why” & “When a Child is Born” unfortunately the songs didn’t catapult Herve to arena tours with Michael Jackson and the song ‘Why’ was released again and included on the Epic records compilation “Children of the World”. Here’s some live footage of Herve gettin’ down with his attempted pop hit ‘Why’!
After that as the popularity of Fantasy Island continued to grow Herve’s ego also reportedly began to grow too. He was said to be quite demanding and difficult to work with insisting that he be paid equally with Ricardo Montalban’s salary. He ended up getting fired from the show and his star power proved quite relevant as the show’s following dwindled during a final season with no Tattoo. Hunt down his Epic single if you dare!
Still haven’t had enough? Well here’s some more Herve killin’ it live again!!
5 Reasons Why Netflix Marvel is Better Than Movie Marvel!
I’m really enjoying the latest Marvel Netflix original series ‘Jessica Jones’ and I totally loved Daredevil. It really got me thinking about why these shows seem so far (at least to me) so much better than the Marvel cinematic experience!
After a little thought I decided to nail down my five reasons Marvel should send some of their more popular characters down the same path as Jessica & Matt Murdok!
1.Better Character Development:
It’s clear one of the main reasons why I’ve liked the tv shows more so than the movies is simply because we have so much more time to really get to know the characters inside and out. It can be tough sometimes within only a couple hours to really get a character to the point where you actually understand them and their true motivations without everything feeling a bit rushed.
Netflix gives us the time we need without boring us to really fall in love with the characters. It plays out much more like a comic book taking the time it needs to tell a great story. Some of the Marvel movies simply try and pack way too much shit into too small a time. Not only that but Marvel movies are so concerned with tying everything together between franchises that sometimes you get lost in a big sloppy plot. Imagine for a minute if Captain America would have been a tv series, how much more it would have meant to see Bucky come back as the Winter Soldier after spending a whole season with him and Cap in World Ward II?!
2. Believable Special Effects:
Sometimes when I’m watching a Marvel movie I feel like I’m watching a frikin’ cartoon. There’s soooo much CG and special FX work that it ends up a bit feeling like I’m watching ‘Roger Rabbit’. The Netflix shows have really done a spectacular job with the special effects and they flow nicely alongside the story and the action sequences.
They haven’t required the amount of CG that say The Avengers used but sometimes I really wonder if these big bloated shiny CG stuffed spectacles really need to be telling stories that need that much in the way of FX. More is NOT always better folks and some of these Marvel movies just have NOT aged well and it hasn’t even been that long.
3.Better Villains:
One thing the Marvel movies do NOT have going for them are good villains. The Netflix series works hard at giving us reasons to love and at times really hate the villains. We never really get much in the way of character development for the bad guys in a Marvel movie. Usually they’re just merely there as a reason to see some crazy ass battle go down.
The Netflix series give us the time with the bad guys that we need to really understand them or just really wanna see them get their asses served up. I haven’t once given two shits about any villain in a Marvel movie. And folks your superheroes are only as good as their evil counterparts. So if you ain’t got a good bad guy you ain’t got shit.
4.No Ratings:
Yep, the Marvel movies are all about money and selling boatloads of shit to the kids. Making a killing with merchandise means the movies can never go too dark. However the Netflix Marvel stuff doesn’t have to worry about that, they can cuss, draw blood and have tons of sex if they want to.
The Marvel movies don’t dare go too dark or violent, perhaps that’s one reason why their villains just suck so bad? They’re not allowed to really get all of their evil out onscreen, now imagine the what the Red Skull would have been like in a Netflix series…
5.They Don’t Follow the Marvel Movie Formula:
Let’s all face it, the Marvel movies most definitely have a bit of a tired and predictable formula. I really liked Ant-man but it really felt so “2008”, while watching it’s plot unfold I thought “man we’re really doing this whole thing again?” It felt pretty interchangeable with any other Marvel movies I’ve seen. Good guy gets powers, boring bad guy who has similar powers, cute love interest in danger, big CG fight at end. Blah blah blah..
Or if you’re The Avengers movies you have them all fight a super blah bad guy and then at the end of the movie a big CG slugfest, in a big city, fighting a bunch of similar looking CG clones. The second Avengers movies was really just a retelling of the first, instead of Loki you had Ultron and instead of the hordes of CG Chituari Warriors you had the horde of CG Ultron clones fight at the end in Sokovia instead of New York.
The Netflix shows have broken away from the usual mold at least for the moment and that’s god damn refreshing. Hmm….But then again there is this now:
Ash vs Evil Dead: Was it Worth the 23 Year Wait?!
Well last night was the night, the wait was finally over, twenty three years after the release of “Army of Darkness” we were given the first episode of the sequel television series “Ash vs. Evil Dead”! It seemed like an eternity and to be quite honest I was never fully convinced we’d ever see Bruce Campbell return as his iconic character Ash Williams. I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy, this was a bit like seeing Harrison Ford return as Indiana Jones back in 2008-it kinda gave me the chills. Yeah Ash is that legendary to me and countless others. So after a rip roaring near perfect trailer for the show the question must be asked was it indeed worth the wait?!
The answer is a solid you betcha! The first episode was awesome and it was truly an incredible moment really seeing Bruce return to his legendary role. He didn’t miss a beat and I’ve gotta say Sam Raimi did quite a nice job directing the pilot episode. We even got a longer run time as well clocking in at around 40 minutes or so. This first episode “El Jefe” didn’t have one dull moment and did a excellent job of giving a bit of Ash’s history once again with the Book of the Dead, while oddly not mentioning any of the events from ‘Army of Darkness’. This is only due to the fact they don’t have the rights to that movie as it stands, and can’t make mention to it in the show because of legal issues. But still that’s fine, us fans all know it clearly happened and the version of Ash we’re getting here is a direct continuation of the Ash we all fell in love with in Army of Darkness.
We notice he no longer works at “S-mart” and instead a similar place called “Value Stop” but after 23 years it’s totally plausible that he made a serious career move(in reality another problem with legal issues from AoD). What made this all even better though is now we really get to know just who the hell he really is. He’s not just simply some smart ass with a chainsaw hand, we get to see what a normal night in the life of Ash is really like. We get to see where he lives (surprisingly similar to My Name is Bruce), where he hangs out, his work life and just how much the guy likes to party down. This tv series idea was the perfect way to really humanize Ash and I’m pumped to see how this all plays out for him and his new companions.
The episode wasted no time with any B.S. and really jumped head first in the blood, guts and comedy galore. We get a nice introduction to several interesting supporting characters and subplots as well, all so far played pretty straight and serious. We also got some scares, most delivered with real fright behind them. We’ve got a pretty seriously freaky world with our bumbling anti-hero smack dab in the middle of the mayhem. Well done. As far as action and gore go the first episode gloriously delivers that classic frantic 80’s Raimi style. Bruce is definitely giving it his all and it’s clear he knows it’s finally his time to shine in the spotlight again! So we’ve got a neat, simple plot that’s turning into one hell of a road trip adventure. Perfect. I can’t wait to see the next episode!
The special effects were also pretty fucking awesome, we got a ton of blood and some really excellent make up for the new Deadites that appeared. Much of it really did feel like an extension of the original movies. However I was bit surprised to see the amount of CG used on the show. My only real gripe with it was the shoddy digital effects used. The doll scene in particular had some downright horrible CG and we got more digital blood and gore than I would ever want near anything Evil Dead related. I just knew Raimi wouldn’t be able to resist.
Give me puppet or some stop motion animation instead any day of the week. I only say this because it detracts a bit from the tone of the original and honestly if you’re going to CG some shit in 2015 it better look good. But alas, in the end though it delivered on all cylinders and then some proving the charm of Bruce Campbell just cant be contended with. Here’s a series that I’m gonna find a way to see every week, it was a bit of a dream come true. Nice work Mr. Raimi I honestly didn’t think you had it in you….
The Benefits of Gusbandry: Gay or Not Gay?!!
The Benefits of Gusbandry dropped it’s second episode yesterday online and the plot begins to thicken quite a bit! I really enjoyed the first episode which I was lucky enough to catch at the Portland Film Festival in September and I’ve been waiting for the second to really kickstart the whole “gusband” thing into gear. A “gusband” fyi is a gay husband but you won’t find much in the way of romance in the second episode, at least involving the main character Jackie. It’s no secret that she’s clearly crushed out on the wrong dude.
Just when she thinks she’s finally found her Mr. Right we get to watch it all awkwardly come tumbling down. That’s not say it doesn’t happen without some laughs. Still, I’m already hoping that somewhere in this series Jackie’s “Mr. Right” will eventually pop up, though I fear for her the journey won’t be an easy one! This episode really sets up the premise of the series and by the end of it you’ll be wondering where it’ll go next or should I say just how far it will go. It’s playing out so far a bit like Will & Grace if it would’ve been aired in 2015 on HBO and that’s a damn good thing. I’ve got a feeling things are bound to get pretty wild & crazy along the way. I’m curious to see where the wind blows our two main characters and if for some reason neither of them find the love they’ve always hoped for, well at least they’ve got each other…
if you missed the first episode here it is:
Even better now you can watch the second one right after:
Russell Brand to Play “Jesus” on The Walking Dead?!
Ok, so that’s not true in the least! Russell brand is NOT up for the role of the Walking Dead character (not that I know of at least) but the more and more I see Jesus in The Walking Dead comic books the more and more I think that artist Charlie Adlard is basing his likeness off Mr. Brand! Could Mr. Adlard be a Trewser?!
Zombies beware! True News! Subscribe here!
So hey who knows maybe I’ll start some buzz here to get the comedian the role? Not to say he’s looking to be on the show, but I’m a big fan of Brand these days and his “Trews” alternative media news program. If you haven’t already checked it out it’s pretty hilarious and he’s totally dead on with things in the political spectrum of the world.
As far as if he appears in the tv show and who will play the gay badass in the television series remains a mystery but I am going to call it here-let’s get Russell Brand to play Jesus I mean he already looks the part and I’m quite sure he’d be a welcome addition to the show!! Let’s make it happen! Can’t you see the resemblance?
Here’s Brand…he wouldn’t even need to change his appearance one iota!
And finally some Trews!!
Revisiting Anthrax’s ‘Twin Peaks’ Tribute (and Judge Dredd)!
So with Twin Peaks set to be revived soon I can’t help but wonder if maybe this time around legendary metal band Anthrax will finally get the respect they deserve for being big fans of the show! Back in 1993 they released ‘The Sound of White Noise” which was honestly never an album I ever got 100 percent behind. I guess I was extremely partial to Joey Belladonna and this album marked his departure as lead vocalist.
Well Anthrax always had rad subject matter to their songs, lets face it they are metal nerd fanboys and many people don’t realize “Black Lodge” from this album was written about Twin Peaks. Heck they even got the Twin Peaks score conductor Angelo Badalamenti to help them write the song. This album had a much more grunge sound to it as it seemed all bands around this era were changing their sound and trying to cash in on the whole grunge fad at the time.
But still let’s not ever forget that Anthrax delivered the best metal song about Judge Dredd called “I am the Law” and can you believe that two damn Dredd movies materialized and neither of them include this song in the soundtrack?! What a fucking crying shame!! Wake the fuck up Hollywood don’t take Anthrax for granted!! Here’s the video for Black Lodge in case you missed it back in 1993!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7NSKXftE
AND here’s “I am the Law” again, maybe they will put this in that rumored Dredd sequel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rVFi6qkPHE
The Awesome Lost TV Pilot: ‘Tag Team’ with Rowdy Roddy Piper & Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura!
I recently discovered an awesome little bit of information about a tv show pilot from way back in 1991 called “Tag Team”- an awesome little pilot that for some reason never made it into a full blown series. Tag Team starred Jesse Ventura & Rowdy Roddy Piper as two tag team professional wrestlers who get black mailed into becoming cops. The show brought in the writers from Magnum PI and they aimed high for an A-Team type of show filled with comedy and plenty of action. I was recently listening to the latest “We the People” which is Jesse Ventura’s podcast, where he has Roddy Piper on as his guest and they discuss some of their greatest wrasslin’ memories together. They spend a decent amount of time talking about “Tag Team” and the troubles they ran into getting the show on the air.
Both of these guys were favorites of mine as a kid and honestly I’m quite surprised that I haven’t heard about this show until just now. Considering that both of them star in some of my favorite movies ever like “Predator” and “They Live” and neither of these two guys appear to be slowing down one bit these days. Piper has his own podcast appropriately called “Piper’s Pit” and has a cool new HP Lovecraft inspired horror flick in the works called “Portal to Hell” which I am dying to see!
Roddy has been praised by his fans as being one of the coolest guys to meet. Ventura has been Governor of Minnesota and most recently has started his own political web series called “Off the Grid” and has been hinting at a Presidential run in 2016 to really shake things up.
I’m a big fan of Ventura and his no B.S. political views would be a breath of fresh air, so I’m hoping he runs as Universal Dork will be behind him if he does. Either way the whole lost pilot of Tag Team can be seen right here on Youtube! Check this out it’s a ton of fun~!
Universal Dork 