Posted in: Super Round-Up by Archive Authors on February 14th, 2020
"Every small town has a story. But my hometown has a legend. Roswell was a sleepy cowboy settlement in postwar America. Full of farmers and military men, until one day something extraordinary happened, or so the legend goes."
Roswell High was a series of 10 books written by Melinda Mentz in the young adult genre. That's the same place where book franchises like Harry Potter and Hunger Games thrived. These books were first adapted in 1999 on the CW as Roswell. Developed by Jason Katims, the series ran for three seasons and 61 episodes. The series didn't quite catch on in its first season, but the few fans the series did have were rather vocal. It's somewhat ironic that a Star Trek-like campaign involving fans sending bottles of Tabasco sauce to network executives gave the series its first reprieve. That's when Ronald Moore, a veteran of Star Trek, joined the team and brought the series into more respectable numbers. The relationship stuff was pushed to the back burner, and more of the aliens and their science fiction stories carried the series. But it also took the show more away from the books. The ratings bump just wasn't enough to save the day, and like the original Star Trek, it lasted just three seasons.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 27th, 2019
The most amazing thing about The Handmaid’s Tale — other than a powerhouse lead performance from the best actress working in television right now — is that this harrowing, suddenly timely cautionary tale about what happens when society falls asleep at the wheel is based on a story that was published more than 30 years ago. Of course, the show has a lot more going for it than impeccable timing. The Handmaid’s Tale is based on Canadian writer Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the world is in chaos after environmental pollution and sexually transmitted diseases result in a catastrophic decline in human fertility rates. In the U.S., the result was Second Civil War, which led to the establishment of a totalitarian, Christian fundamentalist government known as Gilead. And while life isn’t exactly a picnic for anyone outside of Gilead’s elite ruling class, life is especially dire for women: they are not allowed to own property, work, handle money, or read. Much of this information is revealed in dribs and drabs over what is now three seasons.
The Handmaid’s Tale is created by Bruce Miller, a writer producer who worked on SyFy’s Eureka and The CW’s The 100. The former series offered a cracked-mirror, off-center version of reality, while the latter is a post-apocalyptic drama: both sensibilities proved extremely beneficial for Handmaid’s. A large share of the credit also goes to Reed Morano, who won a directing Emmy for her work on the pilot and established the show’s spellbinding visual tone by helming the first three episodes.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on August 28th, 2019
By Chris Cook
For Baby Boomers, Saturdays in the 60’s and early 70’s meant a bowl of cereal, Saturday morning cartoons, and the Banana Splits. Hanna-Barbera Productions gave us these four silly creatures for fun and entertainment. They were an answer to the Monkees. The characters were developed for Hanna-Barbera by brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who later became famous for H.R. Pufnstuf. Fleegle, Drooper, Bingo and Snorky were whimsical and fun, bordering on psychedelia. The Banana Splits Show lasted 31 episodes but went on to syndication until 1982. Every episode consisted of a “meeting” of the Banana Splits Club. Their brightly colored set was the clubhouse. They would frolic in their harmless, nonsensical fun at their crazy “clubhouse” in the studio as well as out in public. Along with the usual festivities were comedy skits and songs.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2019
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: single gal(s) looking for love — among other things — in the big city. On television, the trope dates back to the days of Laverne & Shirley and continues with more contemporary entries like Sex and the City and Girls. It’s an effective, well-worn story hook that has now gotten a funny, tremendously weird spin thanks to Comedy Central’s Broad City. Broad City began life as a web series. Now CBS has brought together all five seasons of the series and put it in one big release. You get 11 discs. Each season has 10 episodes spread out on two discs. You also get an extra disc with all new bonus features that give you an added reason to pick this collection up.
Abbi and Ilana do interact with a recurring cast of characters that includes Lincoln (Hannibal Buress), Ilana’s nurturing, supportive sex buddy; Bevers (John Gemberling), Abbi’s roommate’s slovenly boyfriend, who spends way too much time at her place (the joke is we never actually see Abbi’s roommate); Jaime (Arturo Castro), Ilana’s sensitive, drug-dealing gay roommate; and Jeremy (Stephen Schneider), the nice guy neighbor Abbi has a massive crush on. These characters mostly float in and out of Abbi’s and Ilana’s life, with the exception of Ep.7/“Hurricane Wanda”, which has all of them — plus a temperamental sibling — holed up in Abbi’s apartment during a storm. It’s an extended showcase for the supporting cast, while also featuring the hallmarks of any Broad City episode: sharply-observed humor involving sex and drugs, Ilana going to insane lengths to help Abbi, and clever sight gags. Oh yeah: there’s also an extended sequence involving a turd. (Would you believe me if I told you it’s not even the most disgusting gag involving a toilet? That dishonor goes to the Season 1 finale, “The Last Supper.”)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on February 7th, 2019
Stemming from a backdoor pilot episode within the series Girlfriends, The Game is a comedy series about a woman (played by Tia Mowry Hardict) who gave up her career as a doctor in light of the success of her boyfriend’s being a star athlete (this is the first pang of misogyny, with more to come). The CW cancelled the series after the third season, and it was picked up by BET for it's remaining years. The show was an absolute hit for a while and managed to score well with fans of Girlfriends. It was like getting an extra nine seasons of that show.
Most of the male lead characters in this show are current or former members of a fictional professional football team called the San Diego Sabers. In fact, most of them seem to have been cut from the team for one reason or another but coast day to day on their fame and burn through their riches. The first few episodes do siphon some comedy from this situation when the character Derwin Davis (played by Pooch Hall, which is a perfect name for a baseball player…but that has nothing to do with anything) has to sell off his cars and home and learns the true cost of all things he used to buy while abiding with the “baller’s code.” Suddenly a $900 bottle of champagne is no longer casually sent to friends’ tables at the bar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 17th, 2018
The Jerk, released in 1979, is a rags-to-riches-to-rags comedy film of belated self-discovery. This was Steve Martin’s first starring role in a feature film and was also written by him. It's hard to watch the film and quite picture Martin as the unknown he really was at the time. Since then Steve Martin has come and pretty much gone from our collective experience. When this film was released, much of this kind of humor was somewhat unique and clever. Today that is not so much the case, and it looks and feels quite a bit dated.
Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script with Carl Gottlieb) in this gag-laden comedy about an idiotic white man, raised by a poor family of black sharecroppers, who doesn’t realize he’s not black. Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is told the horrible truth when he finds himself instinctively tapping his f…et to an easy listening tune on the radio, instead of a low-down blues. His mother (Mabel King) tells him he’s white and Navin takes to the road (in a World War II bomber helmet and goggles) to start a new life in St. Louis. A filling station owner, Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason), give Navin his first break, hiring him to pump gas. One day at the station, Navin has a brainstorm, concocting an invention called “The Opti-grab,” a combination handle and nose-brace for eyeglasses. But Navin runs into trouble when a crazed killer (M. Emmet Walsh) picks out his name at random from the telephone book and tries to kill him. Navin escapes to a traveling carnival, where he wrangles a job as the “guess-your-weight” man. At the carnival, he discovers his sexual nature, thanks to stunt rider and S&M enthusiast Patty Bernstein (Catlin Adams). But Navin meets the beautiful Marie (Bernadette Peters) and he quickly falls in love. In the meantime, the “Opti-grab” has taken off, and soon Navin is a millionaire.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 22nd, 2017
Most movies are just not very good. Lots of money goes into turning out boring, repetitive garbage. You watch it and then dispose of it and make room for the next thing. There are some who do more, but the more you do, the greater the risk. Most filmmakers are not given the freedom to take really big risks, but someone who has been given the opportunity to take the big risk is Christopher Nolan. Interstellar is $165,000,000 gamble shooting for the moon. Actually Nolan is shooting for something way past the moon. He wants to take us to another galaxy. There is so much speculative science in this film that it is mind-boggling. The cutting edge of real science is, frankly, getting crazier and crazier. The average person really has no idea how crazy, but Interstellar is going to try to show us just how crazy. The true nature of some of the elements of the theory of relativity and other related theories is that they defy all logic.
One of the most important things in Interstellar is its attempts to deal with some of the properties of time. The laws of physics tell us time acts differently in different situations. In this movie time rules everything in people's lives, but the main character is given the power to do something with time that most of us don't even imagine. It's important to know some of these situations are described in actual scientific theory. In fact, real science is getting closer and closer to God all the time. Most people who don't believe in God don't expect science to contradict that way of thinking. Interstellar doesn't talk about God, but it comes close to doing something similar. It is science's contention to state statistically there are millions of planets with intelligent life out there. Some of those intelligence forces will seem like God to us. This is simple science, but people have such a wide range of beliefs that no one will ever agree on what is the truth. The reason we don't agree is because mankind is just not smart enough to have real answers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 8th, 2017
"In any war, there are calms between the storms. There will be days when we lose faith, days when our allies turn against us. But the day will never come, that we forsake this planet and its people."
Following the events of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots are working hand-in-mechanical-glove with human authorities (in other words, the apparently all-powerful CIA), keeping close watch for Deception activity, but also helping out in human-on-human conflicts. Meanwhile, Shia LaBeouf has traded in improbably hot girlfriend Megan Fox for the equally improbable Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (an improbability that the script does have some fun with). He is also out of work and dismayed at not being given due consideration as a savior of the planet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 29th, 2017
Of the many films based on books by prolific writer Stephen King, Misery ranks near the top. Falling somewhere between the horror and thriller genres, this film about a twisted obsession is frightening because the premise seems very real. Directed by Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men), who first visited King territory with his 1986 film Stand By Me, Misery tells the story of romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan, Elf) and the fan who rescues him after a car accident.
Paul wakes to find himself in the care of Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, About Schmidt), who’s obsessed with his “Misery” romance series. At first she seems caring, nursing him while he recovers from the accident, which left him with two broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. Soon, though, it becomes apparent that Annie is quite disturbed, and Paul realizes he’s in captivity. When his latest book in the Misery series comes out, Annie is outraged to discover that Paul, who wants to do more serious work, has ended the romance series and killed off the protagonist. She forces Paul to begin writing a new Misery book to fix things, and in his crippled state he has little choice – he’s at Annie’s mercy, until he can escape or be rescued. But is anyone out looking for him?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 19th, 2017
By John Delia, Jr.
"Death is but a doorway to new life. We live today. We shall live again. In many forms shall we return." - Egyptian Prayer Of Resurrection.
