Daily Archives: January 13, 2019

Lisa’s Week In Review: 1/7/19 — 1/13/19

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, I spent a lot of time cleaning out my DVR.  This upcoming week, I’ll not only be getting caught up on the films of 2018, I’ll also finally be posting my picks for the best and the worst of the previous year! It should be fun!

Also, last week, I went through our blogroll for the first time in like two years.  I dropped some dead links and added some new living ones.  If you have an entertainment or culture-related site and you’d like to included in our blogroll, please let us know!  Thanks!

Movies I Watched:

  1. The Art of Murder (2018)
  2. Babysitter’s Nightmare (2018)
  3. The Climb (2002)
  4. Deadly Delusion (2018)
  5. Flashdance (1983)
  6. The Girl in the Bathtub (2018)
  7. The Girl in the Bunker (2018)
  8. He Knows Your Every Move (2018)
  9. He’s Watching (2018)
  10. Holmes & Watson (2018)
  11. Homecoming Revenge (2018)
  12. Lake Placid: Legacy (2018)
  13. Left for Dead (2018)
  14. Lizzie (2018)
  15. The Lover in the Attic: A True Story (2018)
  16. Mandy (2018)
  17. Mean Girls (2004)
  18. Overexposed (2018)
  19. The Perfect Mother (2018)
  20. School’s Out! (1992)
  21. Sorority Stalker (2018)
  22. Stalked By My Patient (2018)
  23. The Strange and Deadly Occurrence (1974)
  24. Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. The 24th Annual Critics Choice Awards
  2. 60 Days In
  3. 911
  4. The Bachelor 23
  5. Bar Rescue
  6. Brooklyn 99
  7. Degrassi Junior High
  8. Degrassi High
  9. Doctor Phil
  10. Entertainment Tonight
  11. Face the Truth
  12. Friends
  13. The Good Place
  14. Hell’s Kitchen
  15. King of the Hill
  16. Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath
  17. Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club
  18. The Love Boat
  19. Project Runway: All Stars
  20. Seinfeld
  21. Shipping Wars
  22. True Detective

Books I Read:

  1. The 103rd ballot: Democrats and the disaster in Madison Square Garden (1976) by Robert K. Murray
  2. Convention (1977) by Richard Reeves
  3. Degrassi Junior High: Exit Stage Left (1988) by William Pasnak
  4. James Bond in Win, Place, or Die (1985) by R.L. Stine

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Above & Beyond
  2. Adam Rickfors
  3. Adi Ulmansky
  4. Alvin Risk
  5. Anat Moshovski
  6. Armin van Buuren
  7. Avicii
  8. Big Data
  9. Blanck Mass
  10. Bring Me The Horizon
  11. Britney Spears
  12. Cedric Gervais
  13. The Chemical Brothers
  14. Coldplay
  15. Dada Life
  16. Dillon Francis
  17. DJ Judaa
  18. DJ Snake
  19. Fiona Apple
  20. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
  21. Gwen Stefani
  22. Jackal
  23. Jake Bugg
  24. Jennifer Lopez
  25. Joywave
  26. Lady Gaga
  27. Hardwell
  28. Kaskade
  29. Otto Knows
  30. Porter Robinson
  31. Saint Motel
  32. Skrillex
  33. Sleigh Bells
  34. Steve Aoki
  35. Swedish House Mafia
  36. Syrup
  37. Taking Back Sunday
  38. Tiesto

Links From Last Week

  1. On her photography site, Erin shared: Sun Drenched, Cars, One Missing Trash Bag, Litter, Never Forget, and Mushrooms!
  2. On my music site, I shared songs from Blanck Mass, Kaskade, The Chemical Brothers, Armin van Buuren, Skrillex and Alvin Risk, Jake Bugg, and Saint Motel!
  3. On SyFyDesigns, I wrote about my new year’s resolution!
  4. For Horror Critic, I reviewed The Strange and Deadly Occurrence!
  5. Six Spot: Best Supporting Actress 2017 (This is a really fun feature at Awards Circuit, where they speculate about who just missed receiving an Oscar nomination.)
  6. Tom Hiddleston Said To Be The Narrator Of The Upcoming Young Loki Series
  7. Britney Spears’s …Baby One More Time Is Weirder Than You Remember
  8. ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ Cast Is Revealed
  9. Whoopi Goldberg is game to host the Oscars
  10. Oscars will be hostless for the first time in forever!
  11. Will the Oscars go hostless?  Here’s what we know about the situation.
  12. Finally, my tweet about the whole Oscar hosting situation got picked up and used in a twitter moment so yay me!:

Links From The Site

  1. Erin shared the following artwork: Dressed to Kill, Scandal!, City Hotel, Appointment With Fear, Model for Murder, No Angles For Me, and The Case of the Violent Virgin!
  2. Gary reviewed Handsome Johnny, The Spanish Main, and The Ghost and Mr, Chicken!
  3. Ryan reviewed The New World : Comics From Mauretenia and Cry, along with sharing his weekly reading round-up!
  4. Arleigh shared music from Mamamoo and the trailers for Kingdom and Season 2 of The Punisher!
  5. I shared music videos from Bring Me The Horizon, The Chemical Brothers, Hardwell, The Chemical Brothers (again), Jennifer Lopez. Steve Aoki, and Britney Spears!  I also shared the DGA nominations and the trailer for Velvet Buzzsaw!  Finally, I reviewed Flashdance and Holmes & Watson!  I also shared the winners of the Critics’ Choice Awards and the teaser for the 8th season of Game of Thrones!

(Want to see what I accomplished last week?  Click here!)

Have a great week and stay supple!

Here’s That Teaser for Season 8 of Game of Thrones!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, before the premier of the 3rd season of True Detective, HBO aired the teaser for eighth and final season of Game of Thrones.

Now, I’m not even going to try to pretend like I have some sort of special insight into what this teaser means.  To be honest, I always struggle a bit when it comes to keeping up with who is plotting against who on Game of Thrones.  Whenever I try to speculate about what’s happening on the show, I’m always proven wrong.  Back during the first season, I even used to get Robb Stark confused with Jon Snow.  Just try living that down….

Here’s what I will say.  The trailer has a lot of atmosphere and it’s all appropriately ominous.  If anyone’s still alive by the end of the show, I’ll be surprised.  And, really, that’s the way it should be.  The teaser takes place in a crypt and features a lot of death statues so even the teaser seems to be warning us that nobody’s going to get out of this season untouched.

Here’s the teaser:

In the past, HBO show have occasionally struggled during their final seasons.  I’m never going to get over what happened to True Blood during its final season.  Hopefully, Game of Thrones will be the exception to that rule.

As always, we’ll see what happens!

Here Are The Winners of the 24th Annual Critics Choice Awards!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

TSL writer Patrick Smith has referred to The Critics Choice Awards as being his “fifth favorite awards show” and that seems like the perfect description of where they fall in awards season.  People do pay attention to them and, in the past, they’ve been a pretty good precursor as far as the Oscars are concerned.  At the same time, there always seem to be confusion as just who exactly votes for the Critics Choice Awards.

Well, the answer to that question is that the Critics’ Choice Awards are voted on by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and, tonight, they announced their picks on the CW.

It was interesting night — two ties and Christian Bale was named Best Actor twice, which of course meant we had to suffer through his “I’m just an ordinary working bloke!” routine two times too many.  By far, my favorite winner was Amy Adams for Sharp Objects.

(On another note: Taye Diggs was an interesting choice to host.  I thought he did okay but, with his talent, he really should be receiving the awards instead of talking about them.  Someone write a great role for Taye Diggs ASAP!)

Here are tonight’s winners!  (Check out the nominees here!)

Movie

Best Song — Shallow from A Star is Born

Best Young Actor or Actress — Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade

Best Supporting Actor — Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Best Supporting Actress — Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Sci-Fi or Horror Movie — A Quiet Place

Best Acting Ensemble — The Favourite

Best Action Film — Mission Impossible: Fallout

Best Animated Film — Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse

Best Foreign Language Film — Roma

Best Original Screenplay — Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Best Adapted Screenplay — Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Actress In A Comedy — Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Best Actor In A Comedy — Christian Bale, Vice

Best Comedy — Crazy Rich Asians

Best Cinematography — Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Best Production Design — Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart, Black Panther

Best Editing — Tom Cross, First Man

Best Costume Design — Ruth Carter, Black Panther

Best Hair and Makeup — Vice

Best Visual Effects — Black Panther

Best Original Score — Justin Hurwitz, First Man

Best Director — Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Best Actress (tie) — Glenn Close, The Wife and Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Best Actor — Christian Bale, Vice

Best Motion Picture — Roma

Television

Best Supporting Actor (Drama) — Noah Emmerich, The Americans

Best Supporting Actress (Drama) — Thandie Newton, Westworld

Best Supporting Actor (Comedy) — Henry Winkler, Barry

Best Supporting Actress (Comedy) — Alexis Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Best Supporting Actor (Limited Series or Made-For-TV Movie): Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal

Best Supporting Actress (Limited Series or Made-For-TV Movie): Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects

Best Movie Made For Television — Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert

Best Animated Series — BoJack Horseman

Best Actor (Limited Series or Movie Made-For-TV): Darren Criss, American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Best Actress (Limited Series or Movie Made-For-TV): (Tie) Amy Adams, Sharp Objects and Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora

Best Actor (Comedy Series) — Bill Hader, Barry

Best Actress (Comedy Series) — Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Best Actor (Drama Series) — Matthew Rhys, The Americans

Best Actress (Drama Series) — Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

Best Limited Series — American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Best TV Drama Series — The Americans

Best TV Comedy Series — The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

 

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 01/06/2019 – 01/12/2019, Paradise Systems

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Editor/translator/curator/publisher R. Orion Martin is doing some seriously extraordinary things with his Paradise Systems imprint, bringing the best in contemporary “alternative” cartooning from China to these shores is sumptuously-formatted and impeccably-designed packages. These are some of the most utterly unique comics on the planet (no exaggeration), and well worth your time and money. Four of my favorite recent releases follow —

Friendship Forever by Inkee Wang occupies some bizarre middle ground between Simon Hanselmann and Austin English, with pliable, gelatinous, bulbous characters toiling away at a dark approximation of what, I guess, passes for “friendship.” But mostly they’re just assholes to each other because, hey, it relieves the tedium of droll, everyday existence. Laugh-out-loud funny in a “guilty pleasure” sort of way, this collection of strips and sketches has a real and unforced fluidity to it, even if it ultimately, in dry parlance, “goes nowhere.” A triumph of color, design…

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Music Video of the Day: (You Drive Me) Crazy by Britney Spears (1999, dir by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember Drive Me Crazy?

Released in 1999, Drive Me Crazy was a little film from the Freddie Prinze, Jr. era of teen romcoms with generic titles.  Of course, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is not actually in Drive Me Crazy.  Instead, the Prinze role was taken by Adrian Grenier, who does a decent impersonation.  In this film, Grenier plays the neighbor of Melissa Joan Hart.  The plot was pretty standard for the films of this era.  Melissa Joan Hart needs to make someone jealous so she pretends to date Adrian Grenier and then they end up falling in love for real.  Along the way, an important lesson is learned about being yourself and not worrying about what cliques think of you.  It’s pretty much a forgotten film, overshadowed by the likes of She’s All That and Get Over It.  (When Adrian Grenier took on the role of “greatest actor of his generation” Vincent Chase on Entourage, it was often said that Chase’s first film role was in a romantic comedy with Mandy Moore.  I assume that was a reference to this film.  Not that I ever watched Entourage….)

(Want to be your super hero …. fallin’ from running horse….)

Originally, Drive Me Crazy was going to be called Next To You, which is perhaps the only possible title that could have been more generic than the one that they went with.  The title changed after the success of Britney Spear’s debut album, …Baby One More Time.  One of the songs from the album, (You Drive Me) Crazy, had been included on the film’s soundtrack and the film’s producers decided to try to capitalize on Britney’s popularity by renaming the film after it.  And so, Next To You became Drive Me Crazy.

This also led to the production of a music video tie-in.  In the video for (You Drive Me) Crazy, Britney plays a dorky waitress who turns out to be a great dancer.  Of course, both Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier make appearances in the video.  Apparently, Grenier really didn’t want to be in the video and had to be talked into it by the video’s director, Nigel Dick.  Did Grenier think that he was too good to appear in a video with Britney Spears!?  That’s a bold statement from someone who subsequently spent 8 years acting opposite of Jeremy Piven.

Anyway, this is a fun video and, with everything that she’s been through, it’s always kind of nice to see Britney actually enjoying herself.  Filmed years before the marriage to Kevin Federline and all the stuff that followed afterwards, there’s a lot of optimism and hope to be found in this video.

Enjoy!