Monthly Archives - April 2024

30Apr

Paramount’s CEO Fired Right Before the Earnings Call

Well that was brief but exciting.  Bob Bakish “stepped down” right before the Paramount earnings call started on Monday.  Like the tombstone says, I had looked for this but not so soon.  I actually no, I had looked for this and been surprised I hadn’t seen it long before now. Under his “leadership” Paramount has fallen to the bottom of the Hollywood ladder.  It has assets but no real ability to make use of them now.  Like every other studio that gambled...

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30Apr

Snap Shot: Bluey – The Sign

From the Babylon Bee: Where did Calvin go? When did he leave the room?" asked father John Pearson, 32, after he and his wife Bridgette suddenly snapped out of a trance-like state, realizing that they'd been watching Bluey episodes alone for three hours. "What?" his wife asked, slowly emerging from her stupor. "Oh. Yeah, I guess he did wander off a while ago. But... you know, we should probably just finish one more episode. I like to, uh, make sure there's...

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29Apr

The Dark Herald Recommends: Spy X Family – Code White

I have made no secret of my fondness for the anime series Spy X Family.  A TV show that is at its heart about some lonely and broken if hypercompetent people forming a make-shift family works for me on just about every level.  If you throw in James Bond early 1960s aesthetics then I’m hooked and in the net.   From my review: Spy X Family takes place in a world that is very much Cold War Cool Sixties. The nations of...

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27Apr

RE:View Ladyhawke

Few things were more terrible than video rental night in the Eighties… When it was her turn to pick. Blockbuster night in the Eighties was fantastic when it was the guy’s turn to select the tape but when it was the girl’s, you, the young male Gen-Xer, knew you were facing an avalanche of overwhelming boredom.  Chick flicks in the Eighties were an unclimbable mountain of ennui that you would nevertheless be required to try and scale. The reason for all of this suck was...

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26Apr

RE:View – The Last Starfighter

No generation ever had bigger promises made to it than Gen-X.   The world we were supposed to inherit would be beyond imagining.  America would be even greater and more powerful than it had ever been.  The average life expectancy would be 180 years old. We would definitely be getting farther ahead than our parents had gotten in life.  Our first cars would be able to fly.  And a lot of us were expected to be living and working on the moon.    No member of Generation-X has...

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25Apr

RE:View Highlander

The sword fighting is T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E! After the first five minutes of this movie and I was wondering if I’d made a mistake.  Some things just play better in the halls of memory. Henry Cavil’s commitment to the Highlander has instantly injected a lot of interest into what has been a dead franchise since the early 2000s.  On the face of it, he is perfect for the role. Consequently, I decided to watch it for the first time since I was dating my wife, and...

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23Apr

If Star Wars Had Been Made in the Fifties

I'm doing better. Not great you understand but at least better.  Enough so that I can at least give my Darklings low-energy new material. Which this is. Star Wars 1950 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUm3oRYV7yM Tron 1950 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjvU6Fwb3JM Avatar - 1950 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZMB5HnMRQU The Matrix - 1950 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5jCFWlGlnQ Discuss on Social Galactic

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23Apr

RE:View – Clash of the Titans

“Greek and Roman myths contained characters and fantastic creatures that were ideal for cinematic adventures. If some of the adventures were combined with 20th century storytelling, a timeless narrative could be constructed that would appeal to both young and old.” -Ray Harryhausen  Clash of the Titans was both the end and the beginning of an era. It was first of the Eighties sword and sorcery movies, but it was also the last Ray Harryhausen film.  And it was quite the swan song. In a career...

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19Apr

RE:Play – The Last Express

This one is a lost gem. I believe I have made my extremely low opinion of the live-action puzzle games from the 1990s crystal clear.  Sure, they made money for their companies, (briefly), but the truth is they were bad. The limitations of green screen studios, plus several hundred-page scripts, combined with the intrinsic problem of multiple dialog trees ensured terrible performances from the actors.  And not all of these actors were the result of a community theater casting round-up.  Ripper from Take-Two starred...

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