Daily Archives: January 20, 2019

Lisa’s Week In Review — 1/14/19 — 1/20/19

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s a freaking eclipse going on right now, y’all!

While the rest of America is debating football and Alexandre Rothier is making fun of us for not being soccer fans, Erin and I have been shivering out in the backyard and watching as the moon slowly disappears.  It’s like 36 degrees out there and neither one of was exactly dressed warmly but hey, it’s the first eclipse of the year!  It’s called a Bloodmoon, which I assume has something to do with Twilight.

For me, this week was all about getting caught up with the films of 2018.  For once, I actually managed to accomplish what I wanted to do.  I watched a lot of movies.  I posted my picks for the best and the worst of the year.  Now that I’m finished with 2018, I can actually focus on 2019.  For me, it was a good week and it just seem fitting to end it with an eclipse!

This upcoming week should be wild!  Oscar nominations of Tuesday.  Celebrity Big Brother starts on Monday.  Sundance starts on the 24th.  But, before we get started with all of that, here’s what I did last week:

Movies I Watched

  1. Avicii: True Stories (2018)
  2. Battle (2018)
  3. Blindspotting (2018)
  4. The Cutting Edge (1992)
  5. Death of a Nation (2018)
  6. The Favourite (2018)
  7. Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)
  8. Green Book (2018)
  9. Gun City (2018)
  10. Happy As Lazzaro (2018)
  11. The Hurricane Heist (2018)
  12. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
  13. The Karate Kid (1984)
  14. Like A Country Song (2012)
  15. Mary, Queen of Scots (2018)
  16. Mid90s (2018)
  17. The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
  18. Mission Impossible: Fall-Out (2018)
  19. The Most Assassinated Woman In The World (2018)
  20. Porndemic (2016)
  21. Recovery Boys (2018)
  22. Roma (2018)
  23. St. Paul (2000)
  24. Shirkers (2018)
  25. A Simple Favor (2018)
  26. Spider-Man (2002)
  27. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018)
  28. Support the Girls (2018)
  29. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018)
  30. Upgrade (2018)
  31. White Boy Rick (2018)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. 60 Days In
  2. The Bachelor 23
  3. Friends
  4. Ghost Whisperer
  5. Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours To Hell and Back
  6. Hell’s Kitchen
  7. King of the Hill
  8. The Orville
  9. Seinfeld
  10. True Detective
  11. Undercover Boss

Books I Read:

  1. The Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (1992) by Clive Barrett
  2. Lost Atlantis (1969) by J.V. Luce
  3. The Mad Ones (2008) by Tom Folsom

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Alkaline Trio
  2. Avicii
  3. Avril Lavigne,
  4. Britney Spears
  5. David Guetta
  6. Grey
  7. Jai Wolf
  8. Nouveau Lounge
  9. Saint Motel
  10. Sevenn
  11. Tiesto
  12. Trentemøller

Links From Last Week

  1. On my music site, I shared songs from Saint Motel, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Jia Wolf, Britney Spears again, Alkaline Trio, and Tiesto and Sevenn.
  2. Over at SyFy Designs, I wrote The Shallow Hotness of Beto and January 18th 2019 — Early Morning Thoughts.
  3. On her photography site, Erin shared: Mushroom, Back Yard, Red Sky At Night, Dark Places, Watchers, Fountain, and Dorothy In The Haunted Forest.
  4. Sorry, but ‘This Is Us’ is totally overrated — here’s why you can skip it
  5. On The Trail: The Resplendent Prose Stylings of 2020 Frontrunner Beto O’Rourke
  6. Dario Argento claims Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Suspiria’ remake ‘betrayed’ his original version
  7. Netflix Reboots “Unsolved Mysteries”

Links From The Site

  1. Case reviewed IO and The Meg!
  2. Erin profiled George Erickson and shared the following artwork: Lament for Four Virgins, Leg-Art Virgin, Her Soul Went First, Portrait of a Mobster, Finders Keepers, Detective Fiction Weekly, and the Golden Touch!
  3. Gary reviewed The Westerner, Bowery at Midnight, and The Woman in the Window!
  4. Ryan reviewed Migraine, Hobo Mom, and Things Go Wrong and he shared his weekly reading list!
  5. Arleigh shared the trailer for the new Spider-Man film and a song called Paradise Lost!
  6. I finally completed my look back at 2018 with: The Ten Worst Movies Of The Year, The Best of Lifetime, The Best of SyFy, My Ten Favorite Novels, My 12 Favorite Non-Fiction Books, My Top Ten Songs, Ten Good Things that I saw on Television, and My 26 Top Films Of 2018!  I also reviewed White Boy Rick and shared the trailers for Ghostbusters 3 and John Wick 3!  Finally, I shared music videos from Grey and Nouveau Lounge, along with the following from Britney Spears: Sometimes, Oops …. I Did it Again, From the Bottom of My Broken Heart, Lucky, and Stronger!

Want to see what I did last week?  Click here!

Stay supple, everyone!

The Meg, Review By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

The Meg1.jpg

Yes, I know The Meg came out a while ago, but I just got it on Netflix and had a pretty good date night watching it; so, you’re going to learn about too.  The press was not kind to this film.  They used words like dumbed down, boring, and bland.  I wouldn’t put The Meg in any of those categories.  This was a high budget SyFy movie like Sharknado, but less self-aware.  As for the film, there were some legit scare moments.  My general beef is that it acted as a Chinese propaganda film.  Jason…Buddy…you don’t have to pander like that.  You’ve got abs and monster shark eating people.  Really.  Even if you want to pander, showing the Chinese flag waving gloriously not once, but twice was just over the top ass-kissing.  Just stop.

The Meg, directed by Jon Turtletaub (Jericho, Rush Hour) and written by Joe Hoeber (Battleship), is a straightforward monster movie.  A Jerk Billionaire (Rainn Wilson) funds and exploration of a deepsea cave.  The dive team investigates and voila there be dino-sharks swimmin in thar and they get trapped in the land of the lost in the briny deep. *Pirate Voice*  Hmmm, maybe this entire article should be read in a pirate voice.  Think of it as your innarrrrrrrrr monologue.  A couple of megalodons get out and only Jason Statham and his abs can stop them.  Side Note on abs: I’ve lost 65Lbs and nearly have Statham Abs.  This doesn’t really add to the review, but come on abs really didn’t add anything to stopping the megalodon, but if Statham hadn’t shown his abs you’re telling me no one would’ve been disappointed?! Really?!  REALLY?! You’re sticking with that?! Fine!

Jason (Just calling him Jason, again, come on…is anyone remembering the character’s name?!!!  You went to see it because Jason was in it…..ughhhh… Fine) ….

Jonas (Jason Statham) is down and out because he had a run in with a Kaiju earlier in his career and now he drinks beer all the time that give him abs….THAT is the only part of the movie I don’t buy and irritated me.  He should’ve been doing crossfit! I’m sorry if you have even one lousy Heineken, you are not going to look like this:

megabs.png

IT’S NOT POSSIBLE! I bust my hump 6-7 days a week in the gym to get the above results and boozing is not possible if you want Statham abs!  He should be doing burpees and drinking green juice!

Anywho, Jonas decides to rescue the yellow submarine and then kill the not one, but two Megs.  There a quite a few Jaws-like death scenes.  There is even a beach scene where The Meg chows down on Chinese beach goers AND when The Meg comes in for seconds, you can see wee swimsuits in his jaws (nice touch Turtletaub, nice touch). Jonas has to pursue the Meg into the beach and kill it.  This is not a spoiler! What else would he do?!  Jonas uses some weird looking submarine and kills it with some sort of submarine knife; I honestly couldn’t tell.  It was kind of a darkly lit scene.

Addendum: There is also a minor subplot with Jonas and Suyin, but it’s too dull to discuss.  I would’ve edited her and her overly cute kid out the movie entirely.

Is The Meg worth Netflixing? Yes! It’s a monster movie. The mainstream press is just too snobby to enjoy a Sharknado or unironically watch a Lifetime MOW.  But not me! I can enjoy a creature feature!

meg5.jpgmeg2

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 01/13/2019 – 01/19/2019, Paper Rocket Mini Comics

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

In addition to her stellar work assembling The Tiny Report year-in and year-out (an absolutely essential guide for small-press readers), Robyn Chapman is also responsible for putting out an eclectic and superbly-curated (dare I use the term) range of minis under her Paper Rocket Mini Comics imprint. Recently a handful of these have come into my possession, showcasing the work of two amazingly talented cartoonists, so let’s not dawdle, there’s too much great stuff to talk about —

Dear Missy is the latest (as in just-released) of Daryl Seitchik’s autobio comics told from the point of view of her eight-year-old (or thereabouts) self in the form of diary entries. This one’s especially painful and poignant in that she relates to Missy (that’s the name of her just-referenced diary in case you hadn’t sussed it out) the events surrounding her parents’ divorce as a poem. Bittersweet to say the least, even…

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Music Video of the Day: Want You Back by Grey featuring Leon (2019, dir by Matt Komo)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, this video last for about three minutes and I have to admit that I spent the first 2 and a half minutes feeling fairly skeptical about the whole thing.

I was like:

“Oh, they’re so in love.”

“Oh, now they’re fighting.”

“Oh, now, they’re looking at old pictures.”

“Oh now, they’re acting like kids again and everything’s okay.”

“Oh now, they’re driving together.”

“Oh now …. OH MY GOD!”

Yes, st the end of this video, the tragedy smashes into you like a freight train and I’m totally supportive of that.  The best short films — and that’s what a music video is — are always either extremely funny or extremely depressing.  Attempting to go for moderately amusing or thought-provoking doesn’t work.  A short film needs tragedy!

And that’s what we get here.  Suddenly, we understand why his old sweater is so important to her and maybe we feel a little bit guilty for rolling our eyes just a few seconds earlier.  As always, your mileage may vary.  Just remember to keep your eyes on the road.

Whenever I see a video like this, I always want to know what they’re fighting about.  These falling in and out of love montages always seem to have a scene where the couple suddenly starts yelling at each other in the kitchen and I always wonder what the exact details of the fight are about.  Is it that one of them wants to eat out while the other insists on cooking?  Is it because someone forgot to get Parmesan cheese the last time they went to the grocery store?  Whatever it is, they always seem to make up, which is a good thing.

Enjoy!