Saturday, July 9, 2022

Return to Smallville: Season 9 - Where the show takes some big swings

Just re-name the show, you dopes



So, Season 9 of Smallville, which has absolutely no business being called "Smallville" anymore as it takes place 88% in Metropolis, does feel quite a bit like when the show grew up to be the show they thought or wished they were making in Season 7.

It's not the best TV you'll see, but it feels like they finally got pieces in place, logistics and characterwise, that were less awkward and like they were keeping one foot in teen-soap.  It's gone full serious super-drama, and is en route to being Superman.

Episodes We Watched


Savior - Despite clear instructions that the Legion ring was set to send Doomsday to the 31st Century, Lois returns from the future which is 1 year from when she left (but she has no memory of this for some reason?).  Clark decides he needs to give up being human at the worst possible time when his best friend is in crisis, making Clark the world's least considerate friend and reminding us he's both dumb and self-centered AF.  We also meet our Zod of the season, who is absolutely acting to the back of the theater in every scene.
Metallo - A reminder that Brian Austin Green is actually a really solid actor and should have been a main actor/ villain on this show for a season.  He's better than the guy they got for Zod, and his character's arc seemed way, way, way cut short.
Kandor - Julian Sands arrives as "Young Jor-El Clone" to basically cause a lot of trouble for everyone involved.  This whole thing makes Jor-El seem like (even more of) an inconsistent boob.  Sands is good, but the episode feels like a swing and a miss, like they forgot the impact that we may have had if he and Clark spent any time together.
Pandora - This is the episode where we find out this universe has an off-the-shelf technology that will allow you to see into someone's memories with a stick 'em pad.  It's AMAZING and never mentioned or used again.  We also see Lois in the future, and Clark shares her memories of them boning, which means Clark experienced what it's like to be fucked by himself.  Which is how we should all be feeling by this point in the series' run.
Absolute Justice Parts 1 and 2 - Geoff Johns takes on writing chores and shoves in every single JSA trope he can, plus Stargirl, and everyone new to show is acting at an 11.  Like, really, really hamming it up in a way that feels weird and incongruous to the overall tone of the show.  It also introduces Pam Grier as Amanda Waller, head of Checkmate.  It's very clear the actor playing Dr. Fate does not know what to do with his hands while in costume.  The girl playing Stargirl should have joined the overall cast, though.
Warrior - A cursed comic book (we've all got a couple in our collection.  Mine was Lady Death #1, and thereby hangs a tale) enables a street kid to become a superhero and in no way is this a riff on Shazam.  Chloe absolutely tries to rawdog a 12 year old, while Clark is faced with the challenge of throwing over Zatanna who is bodily forcing herself on him in favor of Lois in a Spirit Halloween "Amazon Warrior Princess" costume.  Shut the fuck up, Clark.
Escape - On a show that keeps ratcheting up the horniness, Clark and Lois go to an out of the way inn so they may bone for the first time, I guess?  Meanwhile, Green Arrow and Chloe also go to same inn to bone.  It desperately wants to be a sex-farce episode but is distracted by the appearance of Silver Banshee, low-key one of my favorite villain designs.  Lois also appears in negligee.  No notes.  A+.
Checkmate - All I want to know is what the meetings were like with the interior design firm asked to outfit a castle for a supposedly super-secret clandestine government organization when they were like "make this motherfucker look like a chess board, and spare no expense."  All in all, this is a competently told story, and has bearing and weight that make sense.  I was not cracking wise to Jamie throughout.
Sacrifice - Tess invades the watchtower, trapping she and Chloe inside where things get very sweaty, but not in a Cinemax latenight way.  Really my take-way is that Chloe's capture system (a) does not employ the way-overengineered HVAC system of the Watchtower, but (b) we learn that Watchtower has the world's most expensive and unnecessary HVAC system and the controls are right there, as well as the nuclear freon or whatever.
Salvation - After not watching most of the Kryptonian episodes this season and trying to remember them from my prior viewing, I think I'm pretty right in assuming this storyline was dumb as it looks, that the guy playing Zod needed to take it down about 8 notches, and Kryptonians seem dumb as hell for an advanced race.  The few good bits are undercut with stuff like the main trickster villain saying out loud "Yes, I did the one thing everyone here would find unforgivable and abhorrent."  Also, the stupid pilfering of "The Book of Rao".  But the fight choreography was pretty solid.


Where the actual @#$% is Smallville?

Friday, July 8, 2022

Superman and Lois - Season 2 Round-Up





Let me just say, sometimes you need to let a show cruise along for a season and trust in what they're doing when you think maybe it's not going great.  I never felt Superman and Lois was off the rails this season, but I just wasn't always sure why they were doing what they were doing.  And maybe they did too much of some things, not enough of others, but the show felt *intentional* in ways that were satisfying, carrying overall themes, arcs for all the characters (except for Lana's younger daughter, who is an astounding after-thought) that reflect and refract the theme, and allegory mixing with the concrete.

The show seems very aware of the faults and issues with most CW superhero shows from Smallville through to today, and works overtime not to fall into some of those traps even when it sometimes can't avoid them.  It's not perfect - there's stuff I don't love, and things I wish they'd sort out, and choices they made this season which felt poorly considered.  

But they also chose to go big and swing for the fences with big-time superheroics that somehow aren't just spectacle but contain genuine, complex emotional beats.

SPOILERS, AHOY.

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

PodCast 203: "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" (2022) - Marvel Madness w/ Jamie and Ryan




Watched:  07/02/2022
Format:  Disney+
Viewing: First
Decade:  2020's
Director:  Sam Raimi




Jamie and Ryan take a multidimensional look at Marvel's Magical offering from earlier in 2022. Join us as we jump around looking at a Marvel film from a novel point of view, scale a mountain of plot, and consider what magic Marvel is spinning as they expand the multiverse of possibility.


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Multiverse of Madness - Danny Elfman


Marvel Madness - Movies and More...!

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Return To Smallville - Season 8

just go stand in the back, Clark



I dipped in an out of Season 8 of Smallville when it first aired.  They were hitting some key Superman business, and so I was recording episodes and would watch some, parts of some, and skip a lot.  

Season 8 was when CW realized Clark and Chloe were the only characters still around from Season 1, and they pushed Chloe a bit more center to mixed-effect.  With Lex gone, we got Tess Mercer (played by the fantastic Cassidy Freeman), and the introduction of Davis Bloom played by Sam Witwer.  

Episodes


Odyssey - Clark is in Russia for some reason?  Tess shows up and says "I'm the Captain now".  Davis appears as an EMT.  Chloe gets kidnapped and has a new power that could have been cool, but the writers will lack imagination and ditch it mid-season.  
Plastique - Clark is now at the Daily Planet, Tess is CEO of LuthorCorp but spends her time at the Planet, and a young meteor-freak kills people and Clark and Chloe just smile and pat her on the head.  
Bloodline - Clark and Lois wind up in the Phantom Zone, find Kara.  Faora shows up possessing Lois and screws up Season 9 continuity a bit, but we don't talk about that.
Legion - The Legion of Super-Heroes founders show up (Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl) and are somewhat helpful in extracting Brainiac from Chloe.  I liked the Legion depiction.  
Hex - a cute capsule episode where Zatanna shows up and can grant wishes?  The entire exercise seems to be there so someone could put a woman in a Zatanna outfit.  Which would be ridiculous, but Lois' gig seems to be "sexy disguise" starting with this season's maid outfit in S8E1.  But I feel bad for both Durance and Mack as Durance has to play Chloe in Lois' body, and has to walk the fine line of imitation without insult.
Doomsday - Ooof.  This is wildly anti-climatic and embarrassing.  And then there's the nonsensical part where a supposedly cured Davis just straight murders Jimmy, and then they both die, clearing the decks for Season 9.  But, yeah, this was amazingly bad.  And I'm not even going into the Doomsday look, which is...  muppety.

I don't have much new to say.  With Rosenbaum, Glover, O'Toole and Schneider gone, now they need for the new cast to perform.  Witwer and Freeman add a breath of fresh air.  The show seems to recognize Season 7 was a mess, but the writers still aren't much better.

But I do have a note for WB execs.

Superman Is Not Entirely About Krypton

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Return to Smallville - Seasons 6 and 7 - So, So, Soapy

MOVE, Clark!  You're clearly in the way.


Jamie is piloting this ship, and we're now well into territory when I wasn't really watching the show beyond checking in to see what they did with Cyborg, etc..   She's far more familiar with this window of Smallville, and she really didn't want to much most of these two seasons.  

Revenge Watch: Lady Snowblood (1973)



Watched:  07/02/2022
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First
Director:  Toshiya Fujita

Oh.  My God.  @#$% yes.

As a rule, I don't personally believe in revenge.  But if you're gonna do it, might as well come at it with ice in your veins and a sword hidden on your person. 

Is there anything I didn't like about this movie?  No.  Is there anything I liked about it?  Everything.

Watch immediately.  Recommended.