I’ve long been a fan of Star Trek. Recently, I’ve been re-watching all the Star Trek series. I’ve made it through Enterprise, the Original Series, the Animated Series, and The Next Generation and I’ve just finished the second season of Deep Space Nine. I’ll go on to watch Voyager and Discovery after that. Continue reading
Netflix’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic novel The Haunting of Hill House is genuinely scary. They don’t follow the original story exactly. The main characters are a family living in the house, not paranormal investigators, but many of the best lines from the novel are used. I’d say it certainly stays true to the spirit of the original work. Continue reading
If you haven’t seen the original series and the prequel movie, Twin Peaks: The Return won’t make any sense (come to think of it, even if you have seen the previous material, it still won’t make sense.) Disappointingly, we don’t get closure for many of the season two cliff hangers. We don’t learn if Leo survived or not (he only appears in a clip), we don’t learn what happened to Annie or Donna or Hank (they don’t appear at all), and we don’t find out how James Hurley got out of being a murder suspect. Continue reading
I was a fan of the original Twin Peaks (1990-1991). It stood out from other network television series by being weird. There were quirky characters like a lady who carried a log with her at all times. There were dream sequences that were filmed with the actors speaking backwards. And the whole thing was a soap opera parody with almost everyone in town having a secret affair with someone else, people faking their own deaths, and even a surprise twin showing up. Continue reading
It’s become a cliche to say “the book is the better than the movie”, but it’s a cliche for a reason. The Girl with all the Gifts is better as a book than as a movie because the book goes into much more detail than the movie can given its medium. How boring would it be if a movie just showed someone thinking for thirty minutes? And yet whole chapters of books are filled with nothing but the thoughts of characters and it remains fascinating. Continue reading
Not all movies stand the test of time. We’ve probably all experienced shock at rewatching a childhood favorite only to discover it’s not as good as we thought it was. I remembered The Transformers: The Movie (1986) as being sophisticated because Optimus Prime dies in it and tried to get my wife to watch it one time, only to be chagrined to find out it’s basically just one long toy commercial. Continue reading
I didn’t like The Incredibles (2004) the first time I saw it. Now that a sequel is coming out, I thought I’d give the original movie another chance. Let’s see how that goes.
The Incredibles seems to be an homage to the Fantastic Four (1961-present), a comic in which someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can light themselves on fire and fly form a kind of found family. In The Incredibles, we have someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can run fast forming an actual family. Continue reading
Since I’ve last posted about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve seen the latest four movies. They just keep pumping them out as fast as they can, don’t they? Spiderman: Homecoming (2017) was an average superhero movie targeted towards teenagers, but I liked several things about it: it gave us a sympathetic villain, they didn’t bother giving us Spiderman’s origin story (we’ve had enough of those), the bully wasn’t stereotypical, and the high school students appeared to be – well – high-school-aged (in so many Hollywood movies, they have adults play fifteen-year-olds and it just doesn’t work). It’s also funny in parts. Continue reading
I read this to prepare for the upcoming movie. I know the movie will end up being completely different, but one thing they absolutely, positively have to keep the same is Dr. Strange’s mustache. If Dr. Strange doesn’t have a mustache in Avengers: Infinity War that automatically makes the movie worse than the book. If they let Thor keep his beard too, that would be icing on the cake. Continue reading
In Beyond: Two Souls (2013), you play Jodie Holmes (Ellen Page), a girl who is linked to another soul named Aiden. Working with this other soul, Jodie has several unique abilities including remote viewing, telekinesis, the ability to possess other people, speak to the dead, have visions, super healing, the ability to make herself bulletproof, and probably others I’ve forgotten. Continue reading
