Dread

Because I'm pathological, I decided I can't start Picard, because I never finished TNG. So, starting with season 3 because I'm not a fucking masochist, I'm doing a rewatch. Finished 3 and started 4 last night with the two-part Best of Both Worlds. This show is firing on almost all cylinders. Out of all the episodes (26!) I think there's only three I outright didn't like. Seeing it in HD is funny because the effects look quite good, but Data's makeup is often uneven. I may watch the DS9 pilot again just to fully integrate this moment into the "Picard is a real asshole" realm.

Police Story/ Police Story 2: since I was incapable of reading for several days, I knew the healing powers of Jackie Chan so I watched these. They're both fucking great and full of amazing action better than damn near anything you will ever see in the western hemisphere. And they're funny. Hard to pick which one I like more, but I think I might go with 2. The first one feels more about set-pieces while 2 has a more definitive story. Supercop (PS 3) isn't streaming anywhere, but I need to get my hands on that blu ray. The Call: this is from about 20 years ago. Halle Berry plays a traumatized 911 dispatcher helping Abigail Breslin who has been kidnapped by a dangerous man (Michael Eklund) and is in his trunk for a good portion of the movie. It's tropey and dumb and not as good as the similar one from last year with Jake Gyllenhaal, but it was still decent. Features: 53 Shorts: Documentaries: 6 Rewatches: 3

That's an M for me, dawg

Thanks. I'm better today. Just a little wiped out. Some coughing, some sniffles. Thank god the brain fog is mostly gone. Man, I did not enjoy that at all.

New Barry ruled. Binged all of The History of Swear Words on Netflix featuring the delightfully ridiculous hosting of one Nicolas Cage. Fun. And informative!

Well, it finally happened. I woke up with Covid 19. Since it is mild, I was all like "I can catch up on writing, and maybe read another chunk of that Joe Lansdale book. But, sadly, my brain doesn't work for reading right now. This shit is no joke. All visual media for me!!!! Count Me In: a great documentary about drumming in popular music. Sinister Squad: I think I posted the announcement for this movie in the thread about Suicide Squad (the first one). It's like Zenescope comics version of Suicide Squad, the baddies are all fairy tale villains. Review forthcoming. Riding the Bullet: never got around d to watching this when it came out. It never really gets going for me. Mick Garris calls it his most personal and best film, but I can't see it. Spoonful of Sugar/Speak No Evil: reviews forthcoming. These were from earlier in the week, so I can't blamee Covid for forgetting to log them. Features: 50 Shorts: Documentaries: 6 Rewatches: 3

Blood Creek: been meaning to watch this forever, It was good. Review forthcoming Features: 46 Shorts: Documentaries: 5 Rewatches: 3

Birdy: for another episode of Cage Dive Daniel Isn't Real: watched this one again for an upcoming review (did the same last year, but we never got around to it). What a great little movie. I'll talk about it more on the podcast, but it was kind of important to watch for a work in progress I've got. The three central performances are incredible, but Patrick Schwarzenegger (yes, his son) is next level scary as the title character. Features: 45 Shorts: Documentaries: 5 Rewatches: 3

Never Sleep Again is about as good as a "definitive" documentary on a film series gets. I thought Scream, Queen overstayed its welcome by about 40 minutes. Never Sleep Again, however, covers the whole series, but the section on part 2 is the most interesting and compelling part of the doc. Mark Patton comes across as a very sympathetic figure, which I think his own documentary doesn't do that well of a job on.

Finished Lisey's Story. Beautiful storytelling. Wonderful. Finished Defending Jacob. Chris Evans plays a lawyer whose son is accused of killing his bully and all the insanity that comes with it. Really incredible writing. Just started Severance. Two episodes in, but I'm intrigued. It's a slow burn for sure. Very similar vibes to Homecoming.

That last one is too long, so I'm starting anew: Black Hammer Reborn #2: wow. Seriously. Maybe the second or third best single issue in the whole Black Hammer universe. Maybe the best. I don't know. Dark Blood #1: cool. Great first issue. Great idea. Wish I'd thought of it. Blue & Gold #1: this was really fun. Really good job integrating modern storytelling techniques without being lame. I usually hate the kind of shit with "bviewer comments" in the chat while the superhero is live-streaming, but this was done really well. Also, love these guys. Extreme Carnage Phage #1: another great entry Gamma Flight #2: lots of fun. M.O.M. Mother of Madness #1: hell no. Spoiler: that comic book "created by" the celebrity as a means of trying to get a movie made was no good. Shocker. Moon Knight #1: this is incredibly similar to the premise of a Dr. Strange pitch I was working on with an artist friend that also happened to include MK in a minor role. This was before the Dr. Strange resurgence. This was also really good. Radiant Black #6: fuck yeah. Ok. Haha! Savage Avengers #22: looks like next issue is a team-up between Conan, Dr. Strange and Shuma-Gorath? This is the best Marvel series in goddamn ages. Shadecraft #5: honestly, could have used another issue. I thought this was a great miniseries. Shazam! #1: I wasn't into it until the end, so I'm in. Superman and the Authority #1: the whole first issue dedicated to Superman recruiting Manchester Black. Odd. Syphon #1: this was kind of interesting. Time BeforeTime #3: this is great. X-Men Legends #5: ok, Peter David's X-Factor this time. I'm intrigued to see where this goes. Amazing Fantasy #1: Kaare Andrews Fantasy pulp magazine at Marvel. Pretty fun. Batman Reptilian #2: this is really slowly paced. I might be out. Beta Ray Bill #5: beautiful ending. What a great mini. Checkmate #2: I mean, Bendis and Maleev on Checkmate is where the whole thing should have started, right? Eternals #6: well then... Black Knight Curse of the Ebony Blade #5: holy shit. What a twist! Icon & Rocket Season One #1: this was good. Good remake of the original run. I don't know if I'll read any more. I just finished the giant omnibus and await the second volume of said omnibus. Infinite Frontier #3: this series is wild. Fun stuff. Last Book You'll Ever Read #1: ok. I'm intrigued. Mister Miracle The Source of Freedom #3: I have spent too much time and money trying to give a shit about Shiloh Norman. It stops here. Red Room #3: this was the best issue so far. Something is Killing the Children #18: great issue. Symbiote Spider-Man Crossroads #1: ohhhhhh.....these are stories form back in the day. I'd only read the King in Black tie-in (which is weird now that I think about it), so I thought this was a Spider-Verse dude. This takes place right before Peter David starts on the Hulk. Interesting first issue. Teen Titans Academy #3: really dick-teasing the identity of Red X. But I love the Bat Pack. They're fun. Deathstroke, The Terminator Annual #3: from 1994. Reviewed this for my patron exclusive podcast. The Mighty Valkyries #4: the story is great. I liked one artist and really did not the other. The United States of Captain America #2: While I can say almost the exact thing I said above, I like the other artist better in this one. BUT...if you give me Dale Eaglesham, I want a full issue. Vinyl #2: this is so weird. That Texas Blood #8: it sort of feels that this series is really taking a more True Detective-style turn with this second arc. Good though. Really love this sheriff character. DC Horror Presents: The Conjuring : The Lover #3: this was good, bvut I think the series is kind of middling. Basilisk #3: this was awesome. best issue yet. Green Lantern #5: holy shit. This was great! Deadpool: Black White & Blood #1: this was great. Three short stories all enjoyable. Seems like this is the best way to take in some Deadpool. Extreme Carnage Lasher #1: kind of a bridge story for what's next. Intriguing. Firepower #14: excellent. Geiger #5: also excellent. Justice League Infinity #2: yeah this is fucking great. Lost Falls #1: wow! Great first issue! Lucky Devil #1: Damn Cullen Bunn...another thing of his really close to a WIP of mine. This one is still different enough though. And it's good. The Nice House on the Lake #3: this book is nuts. And I love it. Suicide Squad Get Joker! #1: wow. This was really good. Savage Avengers #23: fun as fuck still. Sinister War #2: literally nothing happened here. This is dumb. Spirits of Vengeance Spirit Rider #1: It lost me halfway through, but some fun nonetheless. The Golem Walks Among Us! #1: oh, ok. I don't think I"ve read any Golem before (I also have a Golem hero in a WIP), but I was quite impressed with this. Suicide Squad King Shark #1: off...not very good at all. X-Men #2: This was a really good issue. Jean seems weird though. Batman '89 #1: You know, I think part of the appeal of this endeavour is that the characters look like their film counterparts, and that's not the case here. Disappointing. Black's Myth #2: I'll stick this one out. Bunny Mask #3: This is still great. Defenders #1: Cool. I dig it. Eve #4: Kind of losing its shine, TBH. But there's only one more. Fight Girls #2: Not bad, but just not interesting enough. Fantastic Four Life Stories #3: this is weird. I don't get what they're trying to do here. Hardware Season One #1: This was decent, but didn't really grab me. At least it's not as remake of the original series (looking at you, Icon!). Hellboy and the BPRD The Secret of Chesbro House #2: I swore off Hellboy comics a little while back. Should have kept it up. I Am Batman #0: No thanks. Justice League Last Ride #4: this is fucking crazy. Infinite Frontier #4: This reads too fast! I want more density to this story because I like it. Ordinary Gods #2: When things that are like things I write are really good, I keep reading them. I will not with this series. Batman Secret Files Clownhunter #1: Dumb fun. Why not have another kid from Gotham whose parents were killed and now they're a vigilante? Pennyworth #1: Awful. Rorschach #11: Jesus....this should have been SIX issues. I'll reluctantly finish it off. DIEnamite Lives #2, 3: this is pretty fun Spider-Man The Spider's Shadow #5: pretty good ending. If they're doing the decompressed What If? miniseries now, this is a pretty good template. Black Hammer Visions #7: Boredom personified The Joker #6: Great issue. Eat the Rich #1: By page two, I knew what the last page would be. Still hoped for some clever writing and a reversal, but no. I'm out. The Silver Coin #5: Great ending, even greater to see it's back as an ongoing. Gamma Flight #3: fine God of Tremors #1: a little long in the tooth, but a solid read. The Unbelievable Unteens #1: This was a lot of fun. Iron Man #11: Good stuff Warbound #1: Hell no. Kang the Conqueror #1: this was pretty good. Moon Knight #2: nowhere near as good as issue 1. It gets one more. X-Men Legends #6: could have done without this story. Radiant Black #7: art gets a little kinky, but this is still an exciting series. Second Chances #1: premise is right up my alley, but the execution, not so much. SHAZAM! #2: this was rad. Superman and the Authority #2: yeah, this kind of sucks. Damn... The Cimmerian The man-eaters of Zamboula #2: terrible. Time Before Time #4: I get it. I like it. But I'm just not interested in it. Way of X #5: this is terrible. I'm out. X-Men The Trial of Magneto #1: also terrible. After the Fall #1: not for me. Astonishing Times #1: another premise up my alley that the execution doesn't stick for me. Checkmate #3: still great. Amazing Fantasy #2: still wild and fun. Cassidy's Secret #1: intriguing. I'll do another. Cable Reloaded #1: Ugh...terrible art. Dark Blood #2: ok, pretty solid. Not much more story than #1 gave us though. Darkhawk #1: not very good. Extreme Carnage Riot #1: pretty dope. Ninjak #2: art gets crazier and I like it even more. Something is Killing the Children #19: so good. St. Mercy #1: bored me to tears Symbiote Spider-Man Crossroads #2: this was really fun. Superman vs Lobo #1: absolute shit. That Texas Blood #9: excellent. Syphon #2: yeah, I'm out. The United States of Captain America #3: the best one yet. Love it! Vinyl #3: this is the only one of these so far that I've found less than stellar. This was really bad though. Winter Guard #1: I love these characters. I have since X-Factor Annual #2. I just feel like they are so rarely done well. This is done pretty well. I dig it. Nice to see Vostok and Perun back, too. Infinite Frontier #5: really fun. Midnight Annual 2021 #1: this was garbage. Jesus, DC. How do you have a Midnight/Mr. Miracle team-up and have it be less than brilliant? This sucked. Teen Titans Academy #6: lots of fun. Basilisk #4: Also good. Almost American #1: not for me Dark Ages #1: i love an interesting dark future miniseries. The Marvel Universe in a post-apocalyptic post-electrical world. Black Hammer Reborn #3: this was solid Fire Power #15: really good still Geiger #6: a fine ending Phantom on the Scan #4: I really don't get it. It lost my attention somewhere. Lucky Devil #2: this is good Telepaths #1: This is a failed TV pitch. I know it. It's good though. The Last Annihilation Wiccan and Hulking #1: this was fun. I actually didn't know all that about the pre=Young Avengers pasts of these two, unless it's all new. I don't know. I like these two, and I love the idea of these gay superhumans being the rulers of the united Kree/Skrull Empire. I don't really know what's happening as the Cable one had nothing to do with this. But also, thank god! Red Sonja #1: Mirka Andolfo's Red Sonja, to be exact. I'm intrigued. I'll give it one more. Blue and Gold #2: so fun. Black Manta #1: didn't light me on fire, but I'll read more. Issues: 501 Trades: 5 Omnibus: 3 Graphic Novel: 3

Fuck...new BARRY broke my heart.

We're four episodes into Lisey's Story (we have Apple TV now), and it's pretty great. Hard not to be great with the cast. Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Clive Owen in every episode? Yes, please. Each teleplay written by Stephen King and it's based on his favourite of his novels.

The Sword & The Sorcerer: given that this is where my tastes are spinning back around to lately, I've wanted to rewatch this for a long time even before Albert Pyun died. But, Pyun is a guy you can always find on Tubi, and I did. It's shocking to me that this was Pyun's first film. It's also shocking that its pretty chaste for an hour until it's all of a sudden boobies galore (which kind of tells me a producer told him it needed boobs). The highlight is Richard Moll as the demonic sorcerer. The beautiful visual depictions of Frazetta/Vallejo-style art is wonderfully done. Probably ten minutes too long, but really fun. M3GAN/Wrinkles the Clown: reviews forthcoming Cocaine Bear: review forthcoming Features: 43 Shorts: Documentaries: 5 Rewatches: 3

Started and finished Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story. It's a 3 part docuseries on the Steven Stayner case and its fallout. Stayner was the subject of the 80s movie that haunted the parents of my generation: I Know My First Name is Steven. Like CASTING JON-BENET it mixes hollywood and reality by having some of the actors from the TV movie read transcripts of interviews their subjects gave long after the events covered in the film. Very interesting watch. Welcome to Wrexham: this is the docuseries about Ryan Reynolds and Rob McelHenney buying the welsh football team. This is a great series that I'm not finished yet, but I really love the focus on the various characters and fans that support the team as well as the genuine laughs. They even do a great job filming the games so that it looks exciting. (I have watched soccer before. It isn't). Mostly, I'm just really happy to see that Mac from It's Always Sunny was able to buy a really nice house in Hollywood. I'm a simple man.

Bait/Five Dolls for an August Moon: reviews forthcoming Features: 40 Shorts: Documentaries: 4 Rewatches: 3

Racing with the Moon: pretty solid "blowing off steam before joining the marines" movie with Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, and a radiant Elizabeth Mcgovern. An Unfinished Life: one of this weekend's morning movies was this one from 2005 that was pretty good. Calamity of Snakes: a Hong Kong/Taiwan co-production of the nastiest snakesploitation film ever made. Hard to watch due to the actual animal violence. Interesting to talk about on the podcast soon. The Cotton Club: recorded a review of this a while back for the Cage Dive podcast, it doesn't come out until after the Racing with the moon episode. Forgot to tally it. My thoughts will be very clear in the review. Features: 38 Shorts: Documentaries: 4 Rewatches: 3

No one ever had a better unhinged performance on Eric Andre's show than him. Watch in case he's always been super-serious to you.

Iron Chef Legend is dumb fun on Netflix, but Marc Dacascos (sic) is ridiculously funny. BEEF: Holy shit, this was awesome. I'm not the biggest Ali Wong fan, but she absolutely killed it in this series. And Stephen Yuen is one of the better actors working today. Amazing series. A real "The Nail" kind of vibe with all of the insanity that happens.

GI Joe Retaliation: I watched this twice. Theatrical and then epic action cut, which is a better movie overall. Snake Eyes GI Joe Origins: ai yi yi Not Without My Daughter: on the weekends, Stacy wakes up and usually watches TV. I join her with tea when I wake up. The other day, I walked in with tea and she'd just started this. I watched the whole thing. It's more morally entwined than I remember as a kid, but I really feel like it would be almost cartoonish and maybe a little racist if not for the portrayal of Alfred Mollina as the Iranian husband (ironically). GI Joe Resolute: a rewatch Memphis Wrestling 1987 Yearbook volume 4: this was pretty fun. A few decent matches. Especially the early Midnight Rockers match where Michaels and Jannety have never looked better. Great match where Jerry Lawler teams up with Bam Bam Bigelow too. God, he was a beast. Tubi has a ton of this shit. Features: 34 Shorts: Documentaries: 4 Rewatches: 3

GI Joe The Rise of Cobra: really looking forward to talking about this one. Features: 31 Shorts: Documentaries: 3 Rewatches: 1

GI Joe The Movie/ GI Joe Resolute/GI Joe Renegades: reviews forthcoming for the first two Features: 30 Shorts: Documentaries: 3 Rewatches: 1

Welcome to Leith vs They Saved Hitler's Brain! Haha! I want to mash them up. They Saved Hitler's Brain and had it survive on Meth, Coors Light and Pall Malls.

For all those who want to play along at home

CRABS!: review forthcoming Features: 28 Shorts: Documentaries: 3 Rewatches: 1