Shmee.Me

December 9, 2015December 9, 2015

We Live In World Where Martian Manhunter Is On Prime Time TV!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWtQWNhKZPM

I can only hope that if they are brave enough to put J’onn J’onzz on TV that he will show up in the DC Movie universe as well. I for one never thought I would be around to see a live action version of the Martian Manhunter, but the Golden Age of superhero TV has proved me wrong, and I am very happy! I can’t wait for the eventual J’onn J’onzz/Kara Danvers team-up. It is going to have to be a very major threat, but I am sure they will think of something.

December 8, 2015December 8, 2015

Netflix Wishes You A Very Murray Christmas!

Leave it to Netflix to do something a little different for their Christmas special. Sure they got Bill Murray to sing songs with his famous friends, but Sofia Coppola and company still managed to create something odd and interesting, if not always funny, and I am always in the mood for odd and interesting.

The hour long flick features Bill Murray trying to put on a live televised show in New York in the middle of a blizzard, and of course things do not go well. None of his guests show up, with the exception of Paul Schaffer, and he is only saved by the power going out, so that way his insurance will cover the cost of the production. After that he is free to mingle and sing with the various people residing in the Carlyle Hotel.

I could watch Bill Murray meander around singing and trading barbs with random people all day. He is enormously watchable. If this was that start of a weekly TV show I would be ecstatic, but as a one off special, it was fun, but not something I would watch year after year. Maybe they could just do a new one every year?! Please make a new one every year! We could see what natural disaster Bill’s show has to suffer through next time. That would be fun.

Regardless of what happens, A Very Murray Christmas was an amusing way to spend an hour. It is not a classic, but a tasty little Christmas treat. Unfortunately its language is a little salty at times, so you may have to wait for the tots to go to bed before you partake, but with all the sugar that comes out this time of year, a little salt might be a good thing. A Very Murray Christmas to you all!

December 4, 2015December 4, 2015

Is Gotham About Owlman?!

So this post will have some really minor spoilers about the mid-season finale of Gotham, but I have come to a conclusion. Gotham is about Owlman. Never heard of Owlman? That is not too surprising. He is minor supervillain, but his claim to fame is that he is the Batman from Earth 3 were all the DC superheroes have their evil doppelgangers. Like the Mirror Universe from Star Trek.

Gotham has gone off the rails for awhile now, and been much more fun to watch because of it, but there is no way this is the Gotham that Batman grows up in. I mean James Gordon flat out murders people, and he teams up with villains to murder them. He is supposed to be the last good cop. Not one of the ‘not totally evil cops’. Add to that Bruce Wayne in the mid-season finale said his favorite animal is owls. That’s right! They are saying Batman’s favorite animal is an ‘owl’. Not to mention that Alfred thinks slapping street children is an okay thing to do!

While I am sure that the show runners would say that this is not the case, but it all signs seem to point that way. I can’t wait for Bruce to done his owl cowl!

December 1, 2015December 1, 2015

Who is the Man in the High Castle?

Mrs. The Paladin and I just finished watching Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle and to be honest we only really like half of it. Based off a Phillip K. Dick of the same name, this is a world where the Allied Forces lost the Second World War and now the United States in divided between the German Reich in the east and Japan in the west with a Neutral Zone between them in the Rockies.

Adolf Hitler is still Fuhrer in 1962 but he is aging and the world seems on the brink of another war. Our plucky protagonists obtain a film that show the world as we know it (‘MERICA!) and one of them embarks on a journey to discover how they are made and who is the Man in the High Castle; the other is a Nazi tool or a tool that also happens to be a Nazi or both. There are other characters and some of them are interesting, but for the most part they all run around and yell at each other for making stupid mistakes while making stupid mistakes of their own – all while not really doing anything.

The first half is the more interesting as it deals with more of the intrigue between the two powers and the uneasy truce between them. There is also more danger and intrigue in the “main” story line this first half as well.

What kept me watching was less the main story and more the world. The supporting cast is excellent as well, especially the phenomenal performances by this excellent actor:

Cary-Hiroyuki “Zylyn“ Tagawa as the peace-loving Trade Minister of the Pacific States

and of course this guy:

Rufus “Dark City” Sewell as Obergruppenfuhrer Smith of the Greater Nazi Reich, New York.

I wish the show was more about them and their plans than the other people.

I expect this will get picked up for a second season that hopefully will be more balanced and make a little more sense. Its of course not all bad and we wouldn’t have kept watching if we didn’t think it was worth our time, we were just left annoyed with the main characters and scratching our heads about others. I think there is gold here, they just need to dig a little deeper.

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015

Spending The Weekend With Jessica Jones!

Netflix and Marvel have launched their second attack on my free time, Jessica Jones. It amazes me to say it, but so far I like Jessica Jones more than their previous outing Daredevil. Which I loved. It is because it is so different than anything else on TV. Daredevil was Marvel’s take on what the CW has been doing well for awhile now, and that is the standard superhero TV show, but a little darker and with a slightly bigger budget. Jessica Jones on the other hand is a completely different beast all together.

The show is about the titular Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) as she runs her Alias private investigation firm, but mostly as she tries to track down the crazy evil Kilgrave (David Tennant). It starts off normal enough until you start to learn more about their powers. Jessica is super strong and can jump really far (she calls it controlled falling), and Kilgrave can make anyone do anything he wants if tells them to do it in person.

Kilgrave’s power makes him one of the scariest bad guys Marvel has unleased. Sure Loki could control people’s minds, but Loki had a certain charm to him that made his deviousness more palatable. Kilgrave however is pure nightmare fuel. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and his obsession with Jones. Once a person has served their purpose they are lucky if they are left to go about their normal lives. He is a spoiled child, and no one can tell him ‘no’.

The acting is top notch. Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones is a very broken woman, but she insures that you see her inner strength pushing through it all and matching her outer strength. David Tennant is putting the world on notice that he is not The Doctor anymore. Kilgrave is one screwed up dude, and it will be hard to see Tennant any other way for awhile. Mike Colter’s Luke Cage has me excited for his new show coming next year. The Unbreakable Man should be a lot of fun to watch.

Jessica Jones may be Marvel’s darkest and most twisted tale. It is living up to its TV MA rating, but it is great to see that Marvel has more up its sleeves than just dudes in costumes. In this case a little sociological horror and some gumshoeing. Netflix and Marvel have been really knocking these shows out of the park, and as long as they keep releasing them, I will be renewing my Netflix subscription.