Category: Television

Mixed Bag Watch: I Saw Three Movies This Weekend @65movie @cocainebear @creedmovie #GoodWatch

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I had a goal to see three movies this past weekend. This isn’t something I’ve ever done, but I wanted a lazy weekend where I didn’t have to do anything. No fixing up the home. No significant work on my 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons database. Hell, I didn’t even go to the gym, and my martial arts class was cancelled, so no work out. Just pure laziness. I needed the break anyway. Now I’m going to ruin it by, instead of just posting a stupid meme, writing this post. This is far more thinking than I wanted to do this weekend. Yeah, it’s a low bar.

65 Million Years Ago

First up Friday night was 65 Million Years Ago. This movie will not win any Oscars, not even for special effects, cinematography, or costume design, but it’s only about 90 minutes long, which is about how much you can take before wanting to tap out. The story was as original as a movie can be nowadays, and the fact that this ship crashed within a day of the dinosaur-killing meteor hitting the Earth is reasonably explained. It’s still a crazy coincidence, but there’s some sense to it. The movie is, as you probably know, about a spaceship that crashes to the Earth, and so a guy with some sort of hand-held rail gun(?) and hi-tech grenades takes on a bunch of dinosaurs. So, it is what it is, and you all know what it is going into it, so if that interests you, I think you’ll be (just) okay with it. I was.

These were the scariest dinosaurs. Think really energetic Komodo dragons.

There were no scenes during or after the credits, but there are some visuals during the first part of the credits that you may want to watch.

Cocaine Bear

Because 65 took only 93 minutes, and Cocaine Bear — only 95 minutes — was about to start, I bought a ticket will sitting in my seat (while the credits were rolling; shut up). Future students in film school will be shown this movie to show them how not to make a movie. The pacing was off. There was a part of the movie that dragged. It was terribly unrealistic, and not at all faithful to the story on which it’s based. None of the characters were sympathetic (maybe one exception). Several bad guys got away, and we were expected to sympathize them. Despite all of that, it was an incredibly fun watch. I don’t regret a single minute of the 95 I spent watching it.

I even rooted for the paramedics to die. I hate exceptionally stupid characters.

There are two mid-credit scenes.

Creed III

Knowing that I was going to see this movie, if for no other reason, because Hollywood’s next big thing, Jonathan Majors, is in it, I decided to watch Creed and Creed II this week, and I loved them both. They represented the perfect start to a sequel trilogy. They used Sylvester Stallone, and they followed the basic formula of the good Rocky movies while still carving out their own path, both structurally and artistically. Great idea, and great execution. I was looking forward to Creed III. Unfortunately, this movie was a huge disappointment, which is weird. Besides Jonathan Majors, the backstory is strong as hell. This won’t be a spoiler if you’ve seen the trailers: Majors plays Damian Anderson, a childhood friend of Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed. He took care of Creed, and was the #1 rated amateur boxer ever. (Seriously, he said that in the movie.) Adonis lost his temper and created a bad situation, and when Damian bailed him out, he was the one that got in trouble. He spent 18 years in jail watching Adonis climb to the top, and now he wants revenge. All of this is interesting, and the cast is pretty good, but there’s no Sylvester Stallone, and the execution on the main story is piss poor. It was rushed and unrealistic. Don’t misunderstand me. I can go into a movie like Blade and say, “I’m going to suspend my disbelief and accept vampires exist.” Not everything has to be realistic in that sense, but once you commit to your premise, you have to follow through. You can’t just blow up shit, especially in ways that defy logic, and expect me to roll with it. It was just stupid at times, and I’m too smart for that. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone even if you like this kind of movie.

It could’ve been much better.

There are no mid- or post-credit scenes.

Rounding out the month for me are three movies I want to see: Shazam! Fury of the Gods (opens Friday), John Wick 4: Chapter 4 (opens the following Friday), and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (opens the Friday after that one). April will be a slow month with only one movie, Renfield, worth seeing in the theater, but then May brings what should be my favorite movie of the year, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. June has only two movies of interest: The Flash (June 16) and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30), so things will definitely be normal after this month.

That, the Washington Capitals, the Winnipeg Jets, and the XFL were the basis of my lazy weekend.

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“That Doesn’t Seem Fair” #MCU #TV #movie #science #Falcon #WinterSoldier #ScarletWitch

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This meme popped up in my Facebook feed last Wednesday.

I’ve already (re)shared it to all of my social media accounts, but I find it funny that just one year later, Wanda’s line in Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness.

Like all things, it’s probably the fault of the Darkhold, but it’s still hypocritical of her.

The MCU is so meticulously planned out that I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional.

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Another Random Memory from Late Night TV: A Late Show with Joan Rivers Interview #TV #DavidLeeRoth #VanHalen #music @VanHalen

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Last week, I shared a random memory of a Tonight Show interview. Today is an interview from Joan Rivers’ Late Show. The link should take you to the relevant part, which is at 5:35. Here, Dave discusses the split with Van Halen and the fallout from it.

Side note: The fact that Rivers took this gig created a personal rift with Johnny Carson.

What I remember about this is that Van Halen — Eddie in particular — was deeply critical of Dave in the press, and Dave always took the high ground. For a while anyway. A couple months after this interview, I heard a snippet from another interview on the radio. Paraphrasing to the best of my recollection (which, based on these posts, is pretty good), Dave’s response to Van Halen was, “Well, I’m out here forging the future, and Van Halen is still living in the pasture.”

Still, I took Dave’s side in the mess because he didn’t fight back until Van Halen pushed him over the edge. Of course, I don’t know any of these guys, so I never really cared about their personal battles. I just knew that they were both producing music I loved, so the breakup worked out great for me.

As a reminder, one of only 14 concerts I’ve ever seen was Hagar and Roth’s joint tour.

Memory can be funny thing.

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Star Trek Sunday Memes @WilliamShatner @GeorgeTakei @GineokwKoenig @JeriLRyan @StarTrek #StarTrek #StarTrekSunday

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I return to Star Trek Sunday. (Are any of the kids saying that?)

I found these memes on MeWe’s Star Trek group chat.

I guess that’s funny. This one might be better.

Meh.

Creepy.

But better.

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Random Memory: A Tonight Show Interview #TV #Stallone #Travolta #TonightShow #science @TheSlyStallone

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Everyone insists they have a good memory, but our brains form fake memories all the time. I’ve used YouTube to test my memory quite often and found that my long-term memory is pretty accurate. The weird thing about my memory is that I sometimes remember things as a mirror image of the way they were. That is, if I remember footage from a TV show where person A is on the left and person B is on the right, their positions are swapped. However, I remember incredible detail about everything else in the footage. Here was a random memory that popped into my head when my cousin shared some footage from Saturday Night Fever. It’s an interview on the Tonight Show with Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta promoting the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive.

And part II.

I remembered almost every minute detail of this interview, and because it’s the Tonight Show, I didn’t reverse the image in my head. The host is always on the right side of the screen, and it’s impossible for a healthy brain to forget that.

Unfortunately, my short-term memory is beginning to suffer, and I sometimes have trouble getting words out when speaking. I also have some difficulty forming new memories. As Kareem Said said on Oz, “Life is balance.” I guess I had this coming, but you can imagine how frustrating that is for someone who historically forgets nothing. While I could stand to lose a lot of childhood and young-adulthood memories, I hope the cognitive decline remains slow.

Memory can be funny thing.

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Paramount+ Has Overtaken Disney+ and HBOMax (for Me) @paramountplus @kingstown @TulsaKing @CBS #ParamountPlus #MayorOfKingstown #TulsaKing #BeavisandButthead #CBS #GoodWatch #television

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Yesterday, I blasted a Paramount Plus offering, Scorpion. Today, I bounce back a little bit to tell you that Paramount+ has become my favorite streaming service. The content is just fantastic.

As you must know by now, I’m a Star Trek junkie; a complete apologist for the franchise. Even when I don’t like it, I like it. I just can’t help it. Perhaps there’s one exception, but that remains to be seen. Paramount+ has all the Trek I could ever want and more, so that certainly factors into my opinion.

That said, they have some pretty remarkable original content. Mayor of Kingstown with Jeremy Renner was a slow burn to (IIRC) episode 7 of season 1, but then it exploded, and so far, season 2 hasn’t let up. (Note: Episode 4 of season 1 was phenomenal.) Tulsa King with Sylvester Stallone is also superb. And then there’s these guys.

Perhaps a niche taste.

It’s CBS, so it’s unsurprising that there are also tons of shows and movies, new and old, that should pique your interests. There are some periods of time (e.g., law school) during which I couldn’t spend a lot of time on television. As a result, I missed a lot of series that people swear by as brilliant television. Paramount+ gives me the opportunity to watch many of them. Needless to say, my “My List” is huge on Paramount+. As always, YMMV.

Now, how can I get CBS to pay me for this advertising?

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Dwindling Watch: Scorpion @paramountplus #ParamountPlus #GoodWatch #television #science #math #computer #scorpion

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Welcome to post #1,001!

I have a really annoying habit. Actually, I have several, but this one annoys me. I have to finish what I start. In the context of this post, it means that, once I’ve set my mind to binging the entire run of a television show, I can’t stop until I’m finished no matter how bad the show is. That’s what happened with Scorpion.

Scorpion aired on CBS from 2014-2017, and now you can watch it on demand on Paramount Plus. It centered on a team of underachieving, supra-geniuses who finally get their big break when the Department of Homeland Security designates them a contractor. It started off well enough, and the ratings were some of the best CBS enjoyed during its run. One executive referred to it as “our Big Bang Theory, but as a drama.” However, by season four, the ratings were terrible, and despite a cult following and a tense cliffhanger to end season four, the show was cancelled.

Good riddance.

The show was wildly unrealistic. As anyone with a physics degree, a first career in software engineering, and a current career as an attorney can tell you, most shows are. I have no problem with that. You have to enter into any television show or movie with a certain suspension of disbelief, and I’m happy to do so for the sake of drama. After all, despite not being a comics reader, I’m a huge fan of the MCU and DCEU. What could be less realistic?

I called a fair game today.

But this show dives into many different branches of science, and it gets them all terribly wrong. Moreover, while each episode presents a preexisting peril to be solved, while addressing the peril, the Scorpion team members always make things worse, and usually in the most ridiculous or unrealistic of ways. It’s terrible writing that eventually grates on the viewer. Sharks don’t act that way. Computers don’t act that way. Gravity doesn’t act that way. How is it that you’re always getting your jacket caught right before you have to make a getaway? You’ve been on a deserted island for three weeks; how are you all so clean, and why is Cabe still wearing a suit and tie?

As the charm of the show tends to wane, there’s little left to keep the viewer interested. But I have to say, if there were a season five, I’d have watched it.

Sometimes I hate myself.

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Love Boat: The Next Generation @StarTrek #StarTrek #TNG

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Everything’s been heavy-handed lately. Here’s something to cleanse the palate.

Of course, this was not an original idea. The first such comparison was in 1994 care of Saturday Night Live.

In case it’s ever deleted, the video above was an SNL skit called, Love Boat: The Next Generation.

EDIT: Found another one today (1/8/2024): https://vimeo.com/67326569

You have to be old to get it.

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Something Funny @StarTrek #StarTrek #TOS #TNG #BSG

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Here’s something easy and light-hearted.

This made me laugh.

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Some Christmas Memes #MerryChristmas #Christmas #holiday #LotR #Futurama #StarTrek #Starwars #MonsterVerse #DCU

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Bill Burr had a great bit, which I’ll paraphrase here.

Friend: You’re Catholic, right? Bill: No. Friend: But didn’t you got to Catholic school when you were younger? Bill: Yes. Friend: Then why aren’t you Catholic? Bill: Because I went to Catholic school when I was younger.

That said, I was raised Catholic. 😁 But I, as I bet Bill does, celebrate Christmas to the extent that I celebrate anything. Those are the fun rituals I know, and those are the memes I post.

This again?

Sexy.

Sexier.

Less sexy.

No, it’s not, but we can all agree that it wouldn’t be Christmas without a little Star Trek.

How about some other universes? Dungeons & Dragons?

The MonsterVerse?

The DCU?

Okay, Star Wars nerds. Here’s one for you.

A dubious inclusion.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)