Category Archives: TV Show

Song of the Day: Band of Brothers Theme (by Michael Kamen)

Posted on by Arleigh

Band of Brothers

In what’s become an annual tradition in the Sandoc household since it first aired, Band of Brothers will be marathoned (and of late it’s companion series The Pacific)

The series was produced by both Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks who years before made the equally powerful film Saving Private Ryan. That film introduced the younger generation of today about the true details of heroism and horror that was World War II. What was becoming a dry and academic exercise in schools was suddenly given life in the vivid and heartbreaking imagery as seen through the eyes of Spielberg and the personal accounts of the men of the “Greatest Generation” who went to war and survived to tell their tales.

Band of Brothers would take the accounts of Easy Company of the 501st Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division from their time at boot camp at Camp Toccoa, Georgia through training in England and then the war zones of France, the Netherlands, Belgium and, finally, Germany itself. This series wasn’t about made up soldiers and heroes, but the real ones who survived over a year of constant battle that saw some acquit themselves bravely while others failing to measure up.

The series was a production that had everyone at the top of their game. One such person was Michael Kamen who would compose the series’ orchestral score. It would be one of the last compositions he would create before his death in 2003. Nothing helped set the tone for the series more than the opening theme which accompanied the opening credits for each of the ten episodes.

In honor of Memorial Day, it is this opening theme from Band of Brothers which is the “Song of the Day.”

And now a political endorsement from Lisa Marie…

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Normally, I don’t get political on this site.  But I think New Hampshire deserves a congressman of whom it can be proud.

4 Shots From 4 Shows: Degrassi, Lost, Community, Ringer

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Welcome to a special TV edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films!

4 Shots From 4 Shows

Degrassi: The Next Generation: Time Stands Still Part One (2004, dir by Stefan Scaini)

Degrassi: The Next Generation: Time Stands Still Part One (2004, dir by Stefan Scaini)

Lost: The End (2010, dir by Jack Bender)

Lost: The End (2010, dir by Jack Bender)

Community: Modern Warfare (2010, dir by Justin Lin)

Community: Modern Warfare (2010, dir by Justin Lin)

Ringer: Pilot (2011, dir by Richard Shepard)

Ringer: Pilot (2011, dir by Richard Shepard)

An Exorcist TV pilot? What Sweet Hell is This?

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

fanart_twisted_exorcism_tshirt

I don’t wear hats but if I did, I would give a tip of the hat to my friends over at Horrorpedia for the news that apparently, a pilot has been put into production for an Exorcist TV show.

And then I would sigh.  Actually, that’s what I’m doing right now.

Seriously, an Exorcist TV show?  Which dumbfug toadsucker thought this was a good idea?  What damnable dumbfuckery is this?

Oh!  And hey, the pilot is being written by the same guy who wrote the Fantastic Four movie!  It gets even better!

For what it’s worth, here’s the plot description:

Two very different men — Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera) and Father Marcus Lang (Ben Daniels) — tackle one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession and confronting the face of true evil…

To be honest, I could probably get enthusiastic if the show was a prequel about the early life of Father Merrin.  But this sounds more like a remake of Deliver Us From Evil and that movie was pretty bad!  I mean, not even Joel McHale could save that movie…

And seriously — what type of priest is named Marcus Lang?

Here’s hoping that Pazuzu puts a stop to this before the legacy of a true horror classic is tarnished any further.

A Few Thoughts On The X-Files 10.6 “My Struggle II”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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(WARNING: This review will contain spoilers.)

I have to admit that, after I finished watching the finale of The X-Files “revival,” I felt totally and completely confused.  I wasn’t really sure what I had just seen and I don’t mean that in a good way.  I wondered if maybe, as a relatively new viewer of The X-Files, I simply did not have the necessary background information to follow the episode’s plot.  And then I wondered if maybe I just had not been paying enough attention while I was watching.  Maybe I was too ADD to follow an episode of The X-Files…

So, I rewatched the episode.  I made sure to sit right in front of the TV and to turn on the closed captioning so that I would be able to understand what everyone was mumbling about.  During the second viewing, I came to understand just why exactly I had been so confused.  To say that the editing of My Struggle II was ragged would be an understatement.  It was often difficult to figure out how much time had passed between scenes or where the characters were in relation to one another.  The whole episode felt as if it had been haphazardly constructed, with scenes randomly tossed together.  But then again, that’s been true of the entire season.  Even the better episodes have shared that ragged quality.  The parts, as good as they have occasionally been, have rarely added up to a coherent whole.  I imagine that, if you were a fan of The X-Files before the revival, you might have enough of an emotional commitment, in Mulder and Scully as characters, that you can overlook the revival’s weaker moments.  But for a new viewer, like me, it can get frustrating.

This has been a very uneven season.  Season 10 was made up of 6 episodes, each of which seemed to have a totally different tone and outlook from the other.  There’s been one great episode (Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster), one terrible episode (My Struggle), one mediocre episode (Babylon), and two episodes that were above average but nothing special (Founder’s Mutation, Home Again).  For the first 40 minutes or so, I thought that My Struggle II would be another mediocre episode.  But, towards the very end, things started to get better.  After spending most of the episode separated from each other, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson finally got to share a scene.  (The only time that Duchovny and Anderson seem truly invested in their roles is when they’re playing off of each other.  Each brings out the best in the other.)  And the scene ended with a cliffhanger that was so batshit crazy that, almost despite my better instincts, I found myself saying, “Yes, give us a season 11 because I have to know what just happened!”

And really, thank God for that cliffhanger.  A good final scene can make up for so much.  My Struggle II opens with Mulder missing and, it’s a sign of that ragged editing that I mentioned earlier, that I wasn’t sure how long he had been missing or who exactly was aware that he was missing.  It turns out that Mulder’s missing because he’s busy driving to South Carolina so he can confront the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis), the big villain from the show’s original run.  Apparently, the CSM is aware that humanity is about to be wiped out by an alien plague but he has a cure and he wants Mulder to join him and a few others that he has judged worthy of survival.

Meanwhile, Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale) is back!  When we last heard, Tad had vanished and his web site had been shut down.  And yet, at the start of this episode, Tad has suddenly returned and his web site is once again active.  No mention is made of where O’Malley has been and nobody — not even Scully — seems to be curious about the details.  Maybe O’Malley was never really missing in the first place.  It’s hard to tell with this show.

Anyway, the main reason that Tad shows up is so that he can announce, during his podcast, that humanity’s DNA has been corrupted with alien DNA and, as a result, everyone is essentially a walking time bomb.  This, of course, leads to rioting in the streets which is … odd.  I mean, let’s be honest.  He may look like Joel McHale and his show may be surprisingly well-produced but, ultimately, Tad is just a guy with a podcast.  As I watched the original world react to Tad’s podcast, it occurred to me that Season 10 may be airing in 2016 but it still has a 2002 sensibility.

Working with Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose), Scully is able to use her DNA to create a cure for the virus.  I’m not sure how that works but, in all fairness to The X-Files, this may be one of those plot points that would make more sense to me if I had watched more of the previous seasons of the show.  By this point, Mulder has returned from confronting the CSM and is on the verge of dying from the virus.  Scully announces that, in order to cure Mulder, they have to get DNA from their son William but she’s not sure where he is and…

AND THAT’S WHEN A BIG OLD FLYING SAUCER APPEARS IN THE SKY ABOVE!

And, as frustrated as I had been with My Struggle II, I cheered a little when that UFO showed up.  Ever since this revival started, I have been predicting that William would return.  Now, I don’t know for sure who is in that flying saucer but seriously, it has to be William, doesn’t it?  I mean, who else would it be?  As frustrated as I have often been with The X-Files, I ended My Struggle II wanting a season 11 because I want to know who is in that flying saucer.

And, ultimately, I guess that has to be counted as a point in the show’s favor.  When a show can be as flawed as The X-Files has been this season and still leave the viewer hoping for more, that has to be considered a success of some sort.

So, my final verdict on My Struggle II: Uneven but intriguing when it mattered.  I think the same can be said of Season 10 as a whole.

Will The X-Files return for an 11th season?  Well, if it doesn’t, there will be a lot of disappointed people on twitter.  Assuming the show does return and that William is on that flying saucer, can we all start calling him “Sculder?”

Seriously, I’ve been trying to make Sculder a thing for a while now…

A Few Thoughts On The X-Files 10.5 “Babylon”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

x_files-fox

“How do you say ‘howdy pardner’ in Arabic?”

Hey, X-Files, how do you say “Fuck you” in English?

I was flying between Dallas and San Antonio last Monday when the 5th episode of The X-Files revival aired.  I did DVR it but, as soon as I found out that this episode was set in Texas, I found myself reluctant to actually watch it.

Why?

Well, why not?

TV shows and movies never get my home state right.  After all, Texas is the state that the rest of the world loves to hate.  We are a convenient scapegoat for the rest of America.  Every sin of this country is blamed on my state and it gets a little tedious after a while.  And yes, I know that some people (mostly folks up in Vermont) would claim that it’s our own fault for being so confident and outspoken but you know what?  We only do that because we know it bothers you.

But anyway, the Babylon episode of The X-Files was set in Texas and, having just watched it, I have to say that it really is no surprise that it gets the entire state wrong.  After all, The X-Files movie portrayed Dallas as sitting out in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mountains and caves.  (There are no mountains or caves in North Texas.)  Babylon, meanwhile, portrayed every single person in Texas as wearing a cowboy hat and denim and talking like a bunch of actors who just finished the first day of James Lipton’s “How To Talk Southwestern” class at the Actor’s Studio.  I lost track of how many denim skirts I saw in the background of a scene that was meant to be set at DFW.  It was embarrassing.  Seriously, X-Files, do a little fucking research in the future, okay?  I mean, I know it’s hot but it wouldn’t kill you to spend two hours down here and see what we actually dress and sound like.

And if I seem like I’m making a huge deal about this, you should understand that Babylon made a huge deal about being set in Texas.  If I had taken a drink every single time somebody made a point of saying that they were in Texas or that they were going to Texas, I would have gotten drunk off my ass within a matter of minutes.  Of course, I would already have been drunk from taking a drink every time that someone wandered by wearing a cowboy hat or a denim skirt.

As for the rest of the episode — well, it was technically okay.  It actually had an interesting idea at the center of it, with Mulder attempting to communicate with a brain-dead terrorist.  Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose showed up as Agents Miller and Einstein, who were basically younger versions of Mulder and Scully.  (Lauren Ambrose, in particular, was well-cast.)  If, for some reason, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson refused to ever appear in another episode of The X-Files, I wouldn’t have any problem with the series following the adventures of Miller and Einstein.

But, I have to be honest here.  I could not look past how thoroughly this episode failed in portraying my home state.  And really, there was no reason to set this episode in Texas.  Draw Mohammed exhibitions take place all over the country and Babylon could have just as easily been set in New York or California.  (Except, of course, that would have meant acknowledging that there is prejudice in all the states of the union, even the ones that serve as home base for the entertainment industry.)

Anyway, this upcoming Monday will give us the finale of The X-Files revival.  My Struggle II will feature the return of Joel McHale and, if I had to guess, I would say that it will somehow involve Mulder and Scully’s long-missing son, William (a.k.a. Sculder).  If you want a season 11 of The X-Files, be sure to watch.

I just hope they won’t return to Texas.

Great Moments In Character Actor History: Wilford Brimley on Seinfeld

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Though he is best known today for telling diabetics to “check your blood sugar and check it often,” Wilford Brimley was one of the best no-nonsense tough guys in the movies.  Back in the day, no one played gruff and plainspoken as well as Wilford Brimley.  Whether he was playing a senior citizen in Cocoon, a U.S. attorney in Absence of Malice, or a stern father figure in countless movies and TV shows, Wilford Brimley was the epitome of an honest, upright, no bullshit authority figure.  It has been a while since Brimley appeared onscreen but anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s can remember hearing his distinctive voice and fearing that, somehow, Wilford Brimley knew everything that he had ever done wrong.

Wilford Brimley played many roles but, for me, he will always be Postmaster General Henry Adkins in The Junk Mail episode of Seinfeld.  In this episode, Kramer announces that he is no longer going to accept any more junk mail and dares to suggest that we might not need a postal service at all.  Who better to set Kramer straight than the U.S. Postmaster General, Henry Adkins?  Even if it means having to put off his golf game, Henry is not going to let anyone make a joke out of the U.S. Postal Service.

As Henry himself explains, “I’m a postmaster but I’m also a general and it’s the job of a general to, by God, gets things DONE!”

In the video below, Henry Adkins enters at the 1:17 mark.

After watching this great moment in character actor history, you will never again complain about getting a pottery barn catalogue!

A Few Thoughts On The X-Files 10.4 (“Home Again”)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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Tonight’s episode of The X-Files had the unenviable task of following last week’s episode, Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster.  As our own Leon the Duke pointed out over on twitter, that episode was not only the best of season 10 but one of the best of the series overall.  It was also that episode that convinced me, who up until that point had been a skeptic about The X-Files revival, to stick with this show.

Interestingly enough (and this is something that did not occur to me until about five minutes agp), Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster was also the halfway point of this 6-episode revival.  I assume that both tonight’s episode and the next week’s episode are meant to set the foundation for the season finale, My Struggle II.  A good deal of tonight’s episode consisted of Mulder and Scully just talking.  With Scully’s mother dying in the hospital, they talked about the “big” issues of life, death, and family.  They also talked about their son, William.  This is the son that they gave up for adoption and which they both ususally spend a good deal of time trying not to talk or think about.

So, I’m going to make this prediction right now.  It’s not a huge prediction and I’m hardly the first one to make it.  You’ve probably already made it yourself.  The 6th episode of season 10 — My Struggle II — will be about William.  At first, I thought that William would probably be reunited with his parents during this episode but, narratively, that’s short-sighted and way too easy.  Instead, I imagine that season 10 will end with either Scully or Mulder announcing that he or she is going to find their son and rescue him from whatever conspiracy has gotten its hands on him.

And that search will lead to Season 11 and perhaps every season after that.  It’s a search that will go on until Fox decides to cancel the show for a second time.  And I’ll be watching as Mulder and/or Scully search for William because, despite my initial skepticism, The X-Files has captured me.  Though I still sometimes strain to understand what they’re saying and I’m starting to get seriously concerned about my hearing, I’ve grown to love the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.  That chemistry was on full display in tonight’s episode.  If last week’s episode featured Duchovny at his deadpan best, this episode was all about Anderson.  It was heart breaking to watch her as she struggled to deal with her mother’s death and the legacy of her fractured family.

As for this week’s monster — well, the Trashman was no Weremonster but he was still scary enough to make me go, “Agck!” whenever he showed up and he helped to turn Downtown into an unlikely but powerful anthem of doom.  As well, whenever he popped out of the back of that trash truck, I was reminded of the final scene of Once Upon A Time In America and that’s always a good thing.

(Seriously, Once Upon A Time In America is such a good movie!)

Overall, it was a good episode and I look forward to seeing what happens next week.  Also, I’m going to keep referring to William as “Sculder” until that becomes his official nickname.  It may not happen tomorrow but give me two years and Sculder will a trending topic.

It’s going to happen!

Lisa’s 6 Favorite Commercials of Super Bowl 2016!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, as our longtime readers know, the only reason I ever watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials.  Every year, I post my 6 favorite Super Bowl commercials.  Now, I have to be honest, it’s hard to pick 6 from this year’s crop.  This was a seriously bland year!  There were no sexy commercials.  There were no secretly subversive commercials.  There were no commercials so offensive that I simply had to post them just to be annoying.

Instead, we got stuff like the Super Bowl Babies.  And I know that a lot of people loved the Super Bowl Babies but … bleh.  Seriously, it was a really creepy and kind of annoying commercial and I refuse to believe that anyone actually enjoyed it.  I think people saw the babies and thought, “Oh, I have to enjoy this or else it means I don’t love babies.”  The babies were cute but the commercial was super creepy.

And then there was this stupid Puppy Monkey Baby thing.  What the Hell was that supposed to be!?

I have to say — if I was going to have a pet that was half baby, that’s not the half that I would want.

Anyway, I did finally manage to come up with 6 that I did like.  And here they are!  Please understand that being include on this list does not mean that this site or any author of this site is saying that you should use any of the services or products being advertised.  In fact, seeing as how we’re not getting any money for highlighting this excellent commercials, I would suggest that you not use anything featured in these commercials.

Here are the commercials:

6) Coca-Cola: Little Marvels

Those little minicans drive me crazy and I refuse to allow them in either the house or here at the TSL offices.  Just a few days ago, Leonard try to stock some in the break room fridge and I spent the next few hours pouring them all out on the floor just to make a point!  But, taking all that into consideration, I still like this ad because … well, Ant-Man’s cute.

5) Kia: Walken Closet

I liked this one because it featured Christopher Walken and … well, that’s pretty much the only reason.  But it’s a good reason!  If nothing else, it kept me from thinking about how much I hate car commercials.  I hope Walken does a truck commercial next because I want him to explain what torque means.

4) T-Mobile — Drop The Balls

I liked this one because 1) Steve Harvey has a good sense of humor about traumatizing Miss Colombia and 2) it makes fun of Verizon.  Seriously, Verizon commercials are so smug!  Anyway, you tell them, Steve and keep praying for all us heathens.

3) Avocados From Mexico: Avos In Space

I really enjoyed this ad.  I’ll probably hate it after I see it another 100 times but for now, good job!

2) Prius: Getaway Car

I’m still trying to get the Dazzling Erin to buy a Prius so I can make fun of her for getting one.  But, after seeing this commercial, I now understand that a Prius is also a great car to own if you’re planning on fleeing from the police.  Seeing as how I always root for the guy being chased whenever there’s a high-speed police chase, I appreciated this feature of the car.  Add to that, I love the way that the Prius 4 become celebrities because that’s exactly what would happen in real life.

1) T-Mobile: Restricted Bling

It’s Jimmy!  And he can walk again!

And that’s it for this year!  Next year, advertisers, let’s bring back the sexy and the pretentious, okay?  It’ll make it a lot easier to make out a list.