I saw Dark Phoenix last night and, not for the first time, was amazed at how my reaction to a $200 million effects-laden event film with bankable stars reprising popular roles could be "That was it? Eh."
No spoilers ahead.
Jean Altering
I saw Dark Phoenix last night and, not for the first time, was amazed at how my reaction to a $200 million effects-laden event film with bankable stars reprising popular roles could be "That was it? Eh."
No spoilers ahead.
In the Stir
Other projects commanding my attention mean that, even as older posts slowly get refurbished amidst ongoing technical problems, new content here will continue to be sparse at best for a while — so the soup can is long overdue for display. Not the greatest way to mark the blog's anniversary, but that's the way the cookie crumbles... or at least the way to cooking Campbell's. Please check in every now and then.
The Birdy Bunch
When Larry Wilmore's abruptly canceled Nightly Show ended this past Thursday,
I stuck around to watch @Midnight. Since the Presidential campaign and the Summer Olympics provide no shortage of springboards for Twit-friendly topical humor, I’m assuming we have the program's two-week hiatus to thank for the evening’s mundane Hashtag Wars category: #BirdTV. Personally, I enjoy having an evergreen subject to riff on given that updates to the blog will remain infrequent for some months, so here, minus a few brainstorms that I’d seen others beat me to when I took a quick scroll through the feed on Twitter, are…
My Top Twenty-Five Avian Television Shows
25. America’s Got Talons
24. The Young and the Nestless
23. Feather Knows Best
22. Sesame Tweet
21. Harpy Days
20. Parrothood
19. The Eggs Files
18. Gilmore Gulls
17. Fowl Frontal
16. The Dove Boat
North Mythology
FX will air a marathon of Fargo Season 2 tomorrow starting at 10 a.m. ET/PT.
I can’t recommend it enough. Pretty much everything that TV does well, Fargo does very, very, very well. The cast is phenomenal; the score and soundtrack are just A+; the cinematography is outstanding. Even if the plot and dialogue were nothing special this would probably be captivating television.
But they’re something special indeed. About half of the season’s scripts are credited to showrunner Noah Hawley, the novelist and former Bones story editor who wrote all of Season 1 — and who, given the copious love for the classic 1996 Coen Brothers film on which the series is based, was as bold in doing so as (it turns out) he was justified.
Get Carter Back
ABC finally canceled Marvel’s Agent Carter last week. The short-run winter series, which spelled the fall and spring halves of Agents of SHIELD these past two years, had been a ratings disappointment. Once star Hayley Atwell was cast by the network in a potential regular-season legal drama, now picked up to series, writing met wall.
You can’t entirely blame ABC, who clearly wants to be in business with Atwell.
SHIELD itself hasn't exactly been a ratings bonanza — due in part to ongoing identity crises, tensions between Marvel’s film and television enterprises that leave the big-screen blockbusters bereft of nearly any reference to (and, thus, what should be no-brainer promotion of) the show, and the general demands that “peak TV” has put on viewers’ time. I’ve enjoyed both SHIELD and Carter, however, even as what they do well makes my frustration over what they could be doing better all the greater.
Stella Saner 1916-2016
Stella Saner would have been 100 years old today, had she not passed early in
the morning of January 21st with her daughter, my mother, at her side.
Here’s a lightly edited version of what I wrote to read at her memorial service.
