Dan

Watched this last night and thought it was pretty great. As a war movie it really did what it set out to do. The only real issue I had (apart from Tarkin, who was the literal dictionary definition of "the uncanny valley") was how little I felt invested in most of the characters. Felicity Snow was great, Alan Tudyk was great, Blind Master and his Wookiee/sidekick/brother/lover/whatever the hell he was were great, but I walked out of there otherwise unable to tell you who most of the character names were; that's how little I cared about most of them. To wit: Diego Luna did precisely nothing for me whatsoever, and as we left the theater, I was telling Wendee as much. I couldn't remember the character's name, so I called him "Captain Eurotrash". She looked at me quizzically, then realized who I was talking about and said "Oh, wait. Did you mean No Dameron?" Then we high-fived.

And in the best news ever, Adventures of Captain Marvel is getting a Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber in 2017. Now you can really see the detail when Cap picks up a mobster and beats up another mobster with that guy!

Imagine what it was like when your girlfriend was using it in a performance and you heard it ten times a day for a month while rehearsing. I'm pretty sure it's part of my DNA now.

I can't believe I forgot about this. Yes.

Clue (1985): Damn, I miss Madeline Kahn.

Capaldi has been asked to remain for a fourth series but hasn't made a decision.

54.

An oral history of the Holiday Special.

That sounds exhausting. However, Gil Gerard has an Associate's Degree from the William Shatner School of Stage Combat and that frequently helps make up for things.

I hate that we live in a world where Girl Twiki is a thing.

YOU ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO ENRAGE ME

Because of course we have to have a wink to the last semisuccessful thing he's done in over a decade, i.e., telling a story to a roomful of college students about a movie he didn't make. His episodes of TV have been perfectly adequate in that he didn't manage to break their house style, but "hey, remember that time I told that story back in 2001?" is not something he's earned for a long damn time. Why does he piss me off so much

Thus far, yes.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series is officially happening.

They REALLY need to come up with a Big Bad who's not a speedster.

I haven't seen this episode yet, but I have liked what they've done with Cisco this year. Up to this point he's essentially been "Felicity, but a boy" and giving him this arc has allowed him to really get fleshed out. It helps that the writers understand that a funny person doesn't necessarily stop being funny because he's angry.

Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four (2016): Exactly what it says on the box. Pretty much everyone involved with making the 1993 FF movie, including Corman himself, sits down and talks about making the movie and the various behind-the-scenes machinations that led to it being permanently shelved. This has been the subject of an Indiegogo campaign that's been going for ages, and it's been nice to finally see the results. Everyone involved has fond memories and remembers an awful lot about this film they shot in three weeks over two decades ago, even if a lot of them have to admit it wasn't always very good. What's remarkable is that even now, twenty-three years later, many of them are still capable of getting quite heated and upset about the way things turned out, and there's genuine confusion that someone, somewhere, holds the rights to this thing and has never seen fit to give it even a cursory DVD release (for example, as I write this, Shout Factory has just released a DVD of the 1978 Peter Hooten Dr. Strange to capitalize on the big screen version) but notes that the notoriety has undoubtedly led to far more people having acquired and viewed this film than would ever have seen it if it had gotten the announced theatrical release. Very interesting stuff for people who enjoy backstage drama and also people pointing suspiciously at Avi Arad.

Monterey Pop (1968): D.A. Pennebaker's documentary of the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival that kicked off the Summer of Love. On one level, it's a very successful concert film that showcases some incredible artists, including career-making performances from Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who and Otis Redding. It's also a document of a transitional time in pop culture, as bands in full hippie regalia follow bands still wearing matching three-piece suits (or, in the case of Canned Heat, the band your high school history teacher plays bass in at the church festival), and ends with a twenty-minute performance by Ravi Shankar, an absolutely virtuosic display of the most irritating music ever inflicted on a paying audience, and is far easier to admire than actually enjoy. Otherwise, a wonderful film.