David Lynch Merges With The Infinite

Writer and Director David Lynch has passed.

A lot of ink will be spilled over Lynch, and, in my opinion, rightfully so.  Whether you liked or disliked Lynch's work, he carved a path through cinema and television that was so singular, discussions of movies that went deep would often bring up his work as if by force.  Maybe that's because from Eraserhead to the weather reports he did from his home, Lynch's work was so clearly of David Lynch, it was impossible to ignore.

I have seen some of Lynch's work, but not all.  Like a lot of people my age, I learned who he was through Twin Peaks, and in high school saw Fire Walk With Me, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart.   I've caught up with much of his work since, finally seeing The Elephant Man, Dune and more.  In recent years I finally watched The Straight Story, which I highly recommend.  

The dreams that Lynch put to screen have been and will be much imitated, but I hope they really just inspire the next wave - and I think they already have.  

Like a lot of folks, I am deeply grateful for Twin Peaks hitting my life at just the right time, in both the early 90's and again a few years ago.  I needed the wonder, mystery, tragedy and uncanny state that the show provided.  I'm grateful for the world of nightmares, the story of true love of Wild at Heart, and the acknowledgement of the dark we keep at bay out here in the world that permeates all of his work.  For the dreams within a dream that are Mulholland Drive.

His fearlessness as a filmmaker, and someone who told us that to love people and love the little things is what staves off the darkness seems so simple - but he knew it's not, and he showed us both.

I'll miss knowing that Lynch, as Gordon Cole, is out there telling people to change their hearts.  We'll see you under the sycamore trees.

TV Watch: Landman (on Paramount+)

Curiously, not a superhero show.  Or, if it is, worst superhero ever.

I'd not watched any of the Yellowstone stuff by Taylor Sheridan.  By the time I heard it was watchable there were 23 seasons of it and a few spin-offs, and I couldn't be bothered to enter that particular multiverse.  

But when I saw Billy Bob Thornton, John Hamm, Demi Moore and Robyn Lively would be on a show, I was curious.  Then I saw it was about the energy industry and set in Texas, and my ears perked up.  I have lived the vast majority of my life in Texas, and my father worked for companies that produced instrumentation and valves for oil rigs, derricks, etc..  Anyway - like a lot of folks who grew up around oil, I have a passing interest in the industry.

What's curious is that during my youth, Texas was considered pumped dry.  There were oil fields, sure... but the fracking and all that came along later.  By the time I was in high school in the early 90's, if you saw an oil jack going, it was always worthy of comment.  and, yes, pump jacks could be anywhere and were.   

Someone figured out the fields were *not* dry, and fracking eventually happened, especially out in West Texas.   And when I travelled out that way for work, all of a sudden the hotels were full of guys off a hard shift, getting rest, uniformly polite but eyeing me with suspicion as I went by in my tie.  

Oil wise, things are definitely cooking in Texas.

Landman is, basically, a soap opera that sure feels like a modern spin on the dramas we used to watch, like Dallas.  There's a wide array of characters, oil is at the center of it, but only some are involved directly with the business.  And because it's TV, it's the lives and loves of those working around oil (read: men) that drive the show, and the women who love them.

DCSU Watch: "Creature Commandos" on Max

So I have a new TV girlfriend.  

I can fix her...!

No, but really.  I can't begin to wrap my head around the fact that this is how James Gunn's DC Studios Universe is starting.  Wildly violent, gross, Rated-R just for language, full of nudity, sex and swearing...  My suspicion is that he pitched this to WB during his problems with Marvel/ Ike Perlmutter.  Maybe he pitched this alongside Peacemaker and they said "well, that sounds like $30 million an episode or 250 million as a movie.  But as a TV show cartoon...".

Honestly, I don't care. But, in theory, Creature Commandos does *count* as part of the new shared DCSU.  Which is wild, because this thing is Rated a hard R, is grotesque, violent, morbid and hilarious.  And, because it's Gunn, and he understands monsters - it's also oddly moving.  

Super Watch: Superman and Lois Season 4 - End of Series

It's been a wild ride with two of my favorite fictional people, Superman and Lois Lane, over there on the CW.  

Ever since DC television introduced Tyler Hoechlin as Superman on their Supergirl show, and eventually brought in Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch as Lois, CW kinda/ sorta had to figure out how to make a Superman television program.  And, indeed they did.

As DC wrapped up the "Arrowverse", it was decreed that the coming Superman and Lois show would have nothing to do with that universe, and we'd see a stand-alone Superman.  No Arrow, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Flash, etc...*  For the time being, it would be pure Superman.  And with comics going back to the 1930's, that was plenty, for me.

• Casting Lois News
• The Pilot discussion
• Second Episode discussion
• Post Season 1 Wrap-Up
• Post Season 2 Wrap-Up
• Apparently I didn't write up Season 3?

Ownership of the CW changed mid-production for the show, and I think it did have some impact on DC's willingness to bother with the CW.  I won't go into the politics, but there is no way it didn't have an impact on the show as Nat was portrayed for the first time in media as straight, and the bisexual storyline for another character was never mentioned again.

The clock was ticking on the show once WB put all of DC's motion-media in James Gunn's hands, and *everything*  (minus The Batman and the flop that was Joker 2) would be part of a coherent, single universe.  TV, cartoons, movies, flipbooks...  I can understand WB's desire to give Gunn a clean slate to work with as he brings his vision for Superman to the big screen, and there were always going to be casualties of things I liked.**  

SPOILERS

BatTV Watch: The Penguin

Well, the final episode of The Penguin dropped.  

Don't read this if you haven't finished the show.

All in all, I really don't have any major complaints about the series.  And y'all know me.  I love a good bout of complaining.  

I guess if I was to complain, I'd say that the back-and-forth sometimes felt a bit unnecessary, regarding who was on top.  I get it was a reversed Red Harvest situation, but...  sometimes it felt a little loosey-goosey.  I also wish the Maroni plotline felt a bit more built out - but that's me wanting more Shohreh Aghdashloo.  Also - I don't know how the Falcone/ Gigante mob was supposed to work, how big it was supposed to be, etc...  it sometimes seemed huge and other times like it was maybe 8 guys.  

But these are nits which I have picked.

On the whole, it's kind of astounding.  And for all the good Marvel shows, it really did feel like new territory and showing audiences what was possible.

It's not a secret I like a good crime story or gangster story (and, no, I probably haven't seen that one thing you want to talk about immediately. Stop asking.).  But from the first episode, it was clear The Penguin was going to be better than it needed to be.  By the 4th episode, you kind of knew that this show is going to be held up as one of those highlights of a genre that makes folks ask "why don't they make more stuff like X?"  

Quincy Jones Merges With The Infinite

Quincy Jones, maybe one of the single most important musical minds of the past 70 years, has passed.

Personally - Quincy Jones is how I learned what a producer was as a kid as the media dug into whatever they could discussing the shockingly popular Michael Jackson album, Thriller.  

Jones perpetually found himself in the middle of everything, from playing with Lionel Hampton and Tommy Dorsey as a young man, playing regularly on television, to finding himself the composer of a movie in 1961.  

We became involved in scoring movies while continuing to produce music and creating and arranging, this his collaboration with Michael Jackson.  In 1985, he was one of the key figures in the creation of USA for Africa's "We Are the World".

Jones also produced media, behind shows like Fresh Price of Bel-Air and several movies.  I cannot imagine how much money this guy had, but he did okay.

Jones is a true American success story.  A genius, a mover and shaker, a man who seemingly couldn't sit still...  he managed to have massive impact on the media landscape in music, in television creation, in movies...  

Do yourself a favor and look him up on Wikipedia today.  

Teri Garr Merges With The Infinite

Performer in movies and television, Teri Garr, has passed at the age of 79.

We're aware Garr had been suffering from Multiple Sclerosis for quite some time and had somewhat left the public eye.

Garr is a curious performer as she really bridges the tail end of the Silver Age of Entertainment and carries through the rebellious 1970's and is a star of the 1980's.  A hell of a lot can happen in just over a decade.  

*Everyone loves Teri Garr*, and if you didn't or don't - you're a person I don't want to know.

Hallowatch: Ghostwatch (1992)

Watched:  10/04/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing;  Second

Director:  Lesley Manning

I'd already seen this movie back in April of this year, and you can read my thoughts from 5.5 months ago here.

I basically wanted to make Jamie, Dug and K watch it, and I have no idea what anyone thought at the end.  It's also not the "The Dog Who Saved Halloween" suckage we usually put on if we're going to do a watch party.  

Personally, knowing what's coming, I enjoyed seeing all the pieces come together.  If you're going to do this kind of thing - where you try to make something look "real" - filmmakers really need to review Ghostwatch (1992).  Which really does benefit from not trying to be a period piece, but reflect the idea that "it's happening now".

On a second viewing, I liked seeing how they set some things up, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that does work - but on a first viewing seems like random stuff you're hearing as you go along - which totally makes sense.  Visually - it absolutely works.  It's all practical, so there's no reason to ever get taken out of what you're watching (see: Late Night With The Devil for a counter example) and maybe that's a lesson to horror movie makers?  I know one of the scariest, to me, movies is The Haunting, and there's approximately zero FX of any kind in it.

Anyhoo... a fun Halloween viewing.  Now on Amazon for, like, $2.00.

  

Dame Maggie Smith Merges With The Infinite

Dame Maggie Smith, who was famous for so many reasons, all good!, has passed.  She was 89.

Smith managed the terrific feat of becoming more and more famous and iconic as she hit her later years, starring in international hits like Harry Potter and Downton Abbey.  But she also appeared in popular films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in the past 15 years, was in the mid-90's famed Richard III as the Duchess of York, in Hook as Granny Wendy and led the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as the titular character.  

I saw her first in Clash of the Titans, because I was an 80's kid who liked monsters.  And I recall her in things later, like Gosford Park and A Room With a View, which is probably where my mind goes when I think of her.

She'll be missed, but, dang.  That's a legacy. 

Streaming Superhero Media This Week: Penguin, Agatha, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl

Last week, DC and Marvel sort of went head-to-head releasing two very different shows, but with some interesting similarities.  Meanwhile, Jamie was scrolling my Amazon account, and Amazon (correctly) alerted me that the 1976 Krofft Superstars show, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl is fully available - and in excellent condition.

DC's take was to put out a very adult-oriented mob-show about what seems to be the rise of Oswald Cobb(lepott), better known as The Penguin in Bat-circles.  It's the spin-off from the successful The Batman movie, in which famed handsome-man Colin Farrell put on 40 pounds of latex and a fatsuit to play a character very, very well, that some critics (Paul) have called out for being a role any character actor in LA could have nailed.  And maybe he's not wrong.  

It's a show that's a wild take that has nothing to do with the source material, uses the name of the character  with only minimal care for the comics, and is doing it's own thing while using the DC label.  I do not expect Dr. Fate to show up and help out.

Paralympics 2024

Ezra Frech won Gold in High Jump (and, I think, the 100m)

Like most folks, I suspect, every time the Summer or Winter Olympics came on, I'd see the ads for the Paralympics, and have good intentions and zero follow through.  The only time I remember watching anything was in a bar, but I can't even remember what year that might have been.  

But, coming off the high of the 2024 Olympics, and with no Track and Field to watch,* I figured "hey - more Olympics".  And, "hey, more Olympics" is how the Paralympics is pitched on TV.  And that's not entirely wrong or a bad way to frame it.

Add to that the viral stardom of Olympic track star Tara Davis-Woodhall and her husband, Paralympian runner Hunter Woodhall, and I think people got the poke they needed to remember to tune in. Team USA social media kicked into gear, and Paralympians and Olympians made a lot of noise online about the games (and continue to do so.)  Also, NBC really has made it easy this year to watch if you got Peacock.

So, we watched a good chunk of the Opening Ceremonies, and I watched some Wheelchair Rugby (aka: Murderball).  And then a little other coverage the first night, but we'd been to a play, so it wasn't much.  But I've been trying to watch more.  Especially track and field, because that's how I roll.  But I've watched archery, Blind Soccer, Table Tennis (doubles!), swimming and more.  

The Opening Ceremonies were subdued compared to the bombastic opening of the Olympics, but were lovely, if more traditional in form.  Lots of music, dancing, mascots, marching, pageantry.  Fewer mysterious Joan of Arcs coming down the Seine in a blaze of glory and less Gojira.  More "here is a meaningful dance about being a Paralympian".  

The overall coverage of the summer games for Paralympics 2024 is maybe a format NBC could consider for the Olympics.  It's almost all highlights - so it's all thriller, little filler - and that's better for me as a viewer than NBC's primetime coverage.  For example, I am bored to tears by Olympic diving.  And yet, every Olympics, I have to watch people flip off a board without somehow first saying "Mom!  Mom!  Look!  Look what I can do!"  But the Paralympic coverage on USA is just whipping around.  "Hey!  Check out this crazy table tennis match!  Now, there's blind long-distance jumping!  Now, 200m foot race!  Oh, look, a 4x50 swim relay!"  I mean, it ain't dull.

Let's See How a 13-year Old Post (On Netflix Streaming) Aged, Shall We?

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, this 2011 post that featured me shrugging off the modest rise in cost of Netflix's streaming service has been getting views on this here internet website.  I have no idea why, but I suspect I'm probably getting canceled somewhere by teens with unicorn anime icons.  So everyone buckle up for that to hit.

In the post, I marvel at the possibilities of streaming, and how *cheap* this really is, when you consider the value in comparison/ contrast to rentals, going to the movies, etc...  

The first thing of note is that I didn't bat an eye at using a Louis CK clip.  Hoo-boy.  Time marches on.  And, I kind of forgot, CK was actually really funny until, uh, things came to light...  I think his point in the clip holds fine if you forget his relationship to shrubbery.   

A quick recap:  what I was excited about was that, in 2011, Netflix had worked out deals with the studios to get a lot of their back library.  And for someone interested in movies from all eras, this was a gold mine.  To me, then and now, the *obvious* thing to do was/is put the entire catalog of studios onto a service.  

TV Watch: Batman - The Caped Crusader

Some time in 1992, I stumbled across Batman: The Animated Series.  What I remember is that I was on the phone with my ladyfriend, and asked to call her back in a bit, not wanting to tell her "Batman is currently being dragged through the darkened skies of Gotham behind Man-Bat, and it is amazing."  And, amazing it was.

I was pretty much *in* on the show after that, and my dorm room my first year of college became the 4:00 PM stop off where dudes (and an occasional lady or two) would crowd in for 30 minutes and watch Batman fight his way through his rogues gallery.  

I'd been reading Batman comics since the mid-1980's (I picked up right before Death in the Family, so whenever that was) and was only familiar with what I'd seen in current comics and some very old comics from the 1930's and 40's.  In many ways, Batman: The Animated Series had as much or more to do with how I'd think of Batman than the prior six or so years of comics.  

The series led into Batman/ Superman Adventures and, then, whatever other titles the show wore, but essentially DC animation had continuity from that Man-Bat episode to the final moments of Justice League Unlimited - lasting almost fifteen years.

Olympics Broadcast Summer 2024 (so far)

We've been having fun watching the Olympics.  Gymnastics, soccer, basketball, and beach volleyball are my main things to follow.  But I've been all over the map checking out everything from Equestrian to Fencing (did you see that venue?  Holy cats.)  

Hot tip:  US soccer looks good!  Also both women's beach volleyball teams.  And I think we have really good teams for both basketball squads.

Men's gymnastics was a show stopper Monday evening.  Really good stuff.

I'm Gen-X, so my memory of the Olympics from growing up - really starting with the 1984 LA-based games - was that you essentially got 3 or so hours of coverage in primetime.  There was definitely daytime coverage on the weekends, but I can't recall if they showed daytime games during the week.  Viewers were more or less at the mercy of what the networks wanted to show.  And they showed swimming, women's gymnastics and then some track (I remember Carl Lewis and FloJo very well).  

I think it was 1992 that someone cooked up the idea to make the Olympics pay-per-view and that went over like a lead balloon.  For you kids, it's somewhat like renting a movie in Amazon Prime, but imagine having to place a phone call and pay someone $15 over the phone - and it's showing in real time.  Apparently viewership slipped and the carriers were criticized for trying to make profits *this way*.

But, yeah, the old broadcast model was partly great, partly irritating.  I got to see some amazing moments - I watched Mary Lou Retton live!  But every Olympics, you'd know there were dozens of other things happening you could be watching, but - instead - you'd have to sit through package after package about athletes who would then, inevitably, not do very well.  Or you'd be watching swimmers stand around for ten minutes - and then NBC would say "oh, and by the way, this amazing thing happened in Pentathalon, but you'll never see it.  But we did, and it was greeaaat.  Oh, well.".

I didn't and don't understand the self-fulfilling prophecy of "Americans like only these four things" they used to/ somewhat continue to do every Olympics.

Sci-Fi Watch: "The Expanse" Rewatch, Season 6

• For Seasons 1 & 2 discussion
• For Season 3 discussion
• For Season 4 discussion
• For Season 5 discussion
• For Season 6 discussion

I don't know a lot about the production history of The Expanse.  I know it moved from SyFy to Amazon with Season 4, and that the 6th season was only 6 episodes (for comparison, Season 2 contained 13 episodes).  Further, the number of sets and scope of those sets are greatly reduced when you think of the grandeur of the first seasons, with multiple space stations, practical locations on Earth, interiors of a variety of ships, etc...  heck, casting someone like Jared Harris as a supporting role was nothing to sneeze at.  And we always saw an army of extras.  

That said, this season there's at least half an army of extras, the limited sets we do see are as detailed as ever (if no longer multi-story and as deeply layered), and the VFX are still rock solid.  

Based on the 6th book of the series and a novella, Season 6 is the most direct continuation from one season to the next - picking up as our crew, who dispersed across the solar system in Season 5, reunited on the Roci in the wake of Alex's death.  Now, they're out hunting as part of the UNN/ UMRC coalition, with Peaches/ Clarissa on board.  Avasarala is leading the UN and working with Martian leadership, while Camina Drummer is out in the belt resisting Marco in the wake of the death of Ashford and Fred Johnson.  

Shannen Doherty Merges With The Infinite

After a long struggle with cancer, actress Shannen Doherty has passed.  She was 53.

I primarily know Doherty from her time on Beverly Hills 90210, which I began to watch reluctantly in college.  But I came to know her in 1989 watching Heathers over and over on VHS.  Prior to that, she'd been a recurring player in 1980's television as a kid actor, loaned her voice to The Secret of NIMH and become a main character on Little House on the Prairie (a show I've never actually seen).  

Doherty also appeared on the original version of Charmed, and continued making films and television even during years of illness.

Sci-Fi Watch: "The Expanse" ReWatch, Season 5

• For Seasons 1 & 2 discussion
• For Season 3 discussion
• For Season 4 discussion
• For Season 5 discussion
• For Season 6 discussion

One of the most insane things you can do is recommend someone watch multiple seasons of TV more than once.  But here we are.

The first time I watched The Expanse, I watched it entirely by myself* as a binge-watch.  I think I made it through the first five seasons in about three weeks (the sixth had not started yet), which is simply not a thing I do.  

Spoiler - my least favorite season of the show was the fourth season, which I still liked, but felt like the one season where I felt I'd seen this same sort of thing elsewhere.  On a rewatch, I better appreciate how the Western-like settlement and tensions between moneyed and non-moneyed pioneers informs the overall arc of the show.  

The Fifth Season, which brings the character, political and story arc threads of the show to a head, while simultaneously splintering our Rocinante-based space-fam, was one I'd quite liked the first go-thru.  On a second viewing, I liked it even more.  

The issues our characters brought into the series at its start finally have time to get some spotlight, all against a backdrop of the inevitable consequences of the centuries of exploitation of the Belt (for whom you can apply a dozen real-world analogies) coming to bear.  

Dabney Coleman Merges With The Infinite

Texas-bred actor, Dabney Coleman, has passed at the age of 92.  

Fellow Gen-X'ers will remember Coleman from myriad roles, not least of which included films 9-to-5, WarGames, Tootsie, Cloak & Dagger and plenty of other favorites from back in the day.  

Coleman worked consistently from the early 1960's til just a few years ago, appearing on Yellowstone in 2019.  

Sci-Fi Watch: "The Expanse" ReWatch - Season 4

• For Seasons 1 & 2 discussion
• For Season 3 discussion
• For Season 4 discussion
• For Season 5 discussion
• For Season 6 discussion

Season over season, The Expanse manages to use genre changes to better expand its world and fill in the ideas the novels were trying to communicate - I assume.  I mean, this is what the show does, and the show follows the basic beats of the novels.

Season 4 is essentially broken into 4 separate storylines, with two of those storylines having sub storylines.  

In the wake of the Ring Gates opening at the end of Season 3, humanity is ready to see what else is out there as the gates seem to be opening onto mostly human habitable worlds.  Ships full of eager settlers have begun heading towards the ring in our solar system, hoping to make claims on the 1300-ish other worlds out there.  

While Earth, Mars and the Belt ponder how to manage the almost magical occurrence and ponder the inherent dangers of worlds that have never known human kind, there's also the vast wealth that seems just on the other side for the bold willing to risk it all.

Desperate Belters are rushing blockades in hopes of staking a claim before official channels screw them out of opportunity.  Meanwhile, Avasarala has been made Secretary General of the UN and is now sort of President of Earth - and with her experience has no interest in moving too fast.  She's already barely avoided a cataclysm with the Eros incident, and who knows what's on the other side? 

And after generations of Mars trying to terraform and do this the hard way, Martians see 1300 perfectly livable planets suddenly available.  And the dream of Mars suddenly seems... not worth it?

The four stories follow

Sci-Fi Watch: "The Expanse" Rewatch, Season 3

• For Seasons 1 & 2 discussion
• For Season 3 discussion
• For Season 4 discussion
• For Season 5 discussion
• For Season 6 discussion

One of the curious things that the showrunners of The Expanse did was break things up somewhat by books, but not exactly.  Season 3, however, contains the back half of the second book and the events of the third (a quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that quite a bit was changed from the novels).  

Our crew has escaped Ganymede, and the Protomolecule hybrid.  But Chrisjen is still in space aboard Mao's ship.  Errinwright thinks he's free of Chrisjen, and is able to maneuver the UN Secretary General into war, but the Secretary General brings in an old colleague, Methodist Minister Anna Volovodov to help him write his speech for declaration of war.  

The third season includes events on Io, the Mars/ Earth near all-out-war, as well as the evolution of the crashed Eros station on Venus as scientists try to sort it out - and the eventual escape of the structure built by the protomolecule, forming the ring on the edge of the solar system.  They've also brought along a scientist from Ganymede, Prax, seeking his daughter who seems to have been kidnapped by her doctor.

The evidence of Errinwright's machinations makes it's way to the UN, ending the war.  

With the Mars/ Earth war completed, and with peace a fragile thing, six months in, a convoy of Martian, Earth and Belter ships all head to The Ring - Earth sending civilians.  

Of the many, many things The Expanse does well, it's very aware that not everyone in the future will be a rocket scientist, and we're going to still have our candidates for FailArmy out there (sorry, Star Trek) - a rocket-racing Belter deciding to be the first to race through The Ring on the promise of sex.  And absolutely pancaking against an invisible wall of force.