Category: Blog Posts
[BLOG] A Little Something About Comedy Horror
Tagged 2023, BlogHave you seen Cocaine Bear?
Let me tell you, because I don’t watch trailers and I avoid discussion of something until I’ve seen it… I had no idea what kind of movie it was going to be. Obviously, the premise is silly so comedy was likely, but it could have just as likely been a ‘Giant Squid vs Ice Spider’ Asylum Films situation. It made me look back and think of some of my favorite comedy horror flicks…
Slither – Featuring a bunch of people you love a little bit before you loved them, this James Gunn ‘alien slugs’ movie is just silly. It knows what it is and leans deep into its premise.
Killer Klowns – A movie that is as much a soundtrack as it is a movie, Killer Klowns has no right being as fun as it is given how dumb its premise is. That said, I’ve watched the hell out of this movie over the years.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil – A movie that says ‘How do we take Army of Darkness’ and make it even sillier? Two hillbillies are mistaken as the traditional murdering crazy guys and it just goes from there. It’s ‘what if Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a big misunderstanding?’ ..and that’s brilliant.
Now, there are a lot of other movies I could mention. Army of Darkness, but I don’t think its horror enough. Trick R Treat, but I don’t think its funny enough. An honorable mention goes out to National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, but I saw it as a kid and have no idea if it holds up. (It features a Smothers Brother for god’s sake). There was really only one winning pick.
Cabin In The Woods – I think it’s an obvious choice. It takes a great horror premise that could have been done and redone and just leaves you wanting so much more while telling a funny as hell story. It tweaks every horror trope and mocks everything it so clearly loves. There is no way it couldn’t be my favorite.
So, what are yours? I do have expect Rob will see this and go ‘How come we didn’t do this as an episode’ — and the fact is I thought of that midway through writing it, hell I had to go check to make sure we didn’t already. So, what are your favs? Let us know!
[BLOG] PCR’s thoughts on The Crow reboot
Tagged 2023, Blog, MoviesHey all, PCR here.
The original The Crow movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. That is not to say it is one of my favorite franchises of all time. City of Angels was an understandable and noble attempt to continue on after Brandon Lee’s tragic death, but the movie was sloppy and misguided and, in my opinion, doomed from the start merely because it was trying to be made at all and continue on. Every movie after that was cash grab… Salvation.. Wicked Prayer… the TV series with Marc Dacascos was “ok”, but I can’t give it any more praise than that.
Needless to say, the arc of The Crow franchise is almost as bleak as the story of Eric in James O’Barr’s original comic. Which brings us to the reboot. Or the attempted reboot. Or.. the ‘many-times-attempted’ reboot. Numerous names have been attached to the project… Mark Wahlberg, Bradley Cooper, Luke Evans, Jason Momoa, and most recently Bill Skarsgard. The Skarsgard version has been filming in Prague and wrapped production in September of ’22.
My biggest question is…
…is this film needed?
Other than Hollywood’s seemingly unending need to consistently lack original ideas and continue having to go back to the well.. who’s honestly asking for this? Is the multitude of failed and false-starts for this project something that will doom it before it even (eventually) hits theaters?
I love the comics, and I love the original.. but perhaps this is one we just leave alone. In closing, I leave you with a comment original director Alex Proyas made in a podcast interview in 2019.
“I personally tried to squash it every time I hear of one, not that I believe I’ve been able to. I think extenuating circumstances have stopped it being made because if Hollywood wants to make something that they don’t listen to schmucks like me who bring noble and moralistic issues. My point is that Brandon Lee made that movie what it is. He made that movie, he made that character. That character was not taken from a comic book, that was Brandon. And Brandon Lee died making that movie, he paid the worst price anyone could ever pay making a movie and it’s his legacy. The guy would have been a huge star after that movie. He wasn’t able to ever do that. That’s his final testimony to his talent and that’s why I finished the movie. I finished it for Brandon. After being devastated about what happened we shut down the production and I went back to Australia. Months later I went back and watched the movie and his family all the other actors, everyone involved, said ‘You’ve got to finish this movie because Brandon is so great in it’ and he was. I was able to watch it and see how great he was and I thought then the movie deserves to be completed because it’s his legacy. So that’s what the movie is, it’s not just a movie that can be remade. It’s one man’s legacy. And it should be treated with that level of respect.”
-PCR
[BLOG] A Little Something About Hitchcock
When I’m dealing with the decision fatigue of television.. specifically where I don’t have the energy to start a new show, nor do I want to suffer the likelihood of being disappointed and I don’t want to watch something I’ve seen a thousand times as background noise – I’ve found there is the perfect middle ground.
Paramount has Twilight Zone, Peacock has Alfred Hitchcock and Columbo. Perfect bite sized pieces that I can pick up and put down. Months later jump right back in on something I haven’t seen.. but it’s Alfred Hitchcock I want to talk about right now, because if you’ve never seen it, you are missing out.
Lets ignore the fact that Hitchcock himself is an amazing dry wit and, given that the show was on in the early 60s, every episode is the chance to bump in to a young Robert Redford or younger Christopher Lee. Those bits are just sprinkles.
What’s amazing is the range of episode types, from the ludicrously silly to the brutal social commentary, to the just plain good noir.
Here are some lessons to learn from Alfred Hitchcock Hour & Presents:
1 – Everyone’s in it for the money.
There is a running theme in this show where someone’s getting blackmailed for something. Whether it’s the butler who observed a wife’s infidelity or a nosy neighbor observing a wife’s infidelity, they’ll be fine as long as they pay up. That does lead to…
2 – Women cheat.
From what I’ve seen so far, there is a surprising lack of male infidelity. Sure, the occasional guy falls for another girl, but there is a much higher chance that some dizzy dame is two-timing her hard working bread winner. Which inevitably leads to…
3 – Men are cold-hearted killers.
Sure, you are a top advertising sales person who seems to be beloved by his town, or a nerdy guy Friday caught in something he shouldn’t’a seen. It doesn’t matter, in a moment of intense rage or surprise, every man has the ability to pick up that really odd ashtray and clobber someone over the head with it.
And lastly…
4 – You’re doomed.
It is a rare episode that ends in a complete happy ending. Maybe the wife tried to have you killed to hide her infidelity with the butler or the quirky cop got the final tip about what you were doing in your own closet with a hand cannon. No matter what your situation is, you are done for – and done for in dramatic fashion.
With that said, these are some life lessons that Alfred Hitchcock gives us, so watch your back… you are in grave danger.
[BLOG] The Story (of how we got mentioned on G4)
Tagged Blog, TVHey Somethings!
Way back in October of 2022, I wrote a blog article about “The Rise And Fall (again) of G4”. In that blog, I mentioned how our podcast had gotten mentioned on an episode of Attack of the Show Vibe Check, but said the story would be for another day….
….well that day has arrived.
As I had mentioned before, I was super excited when G4 returned. Not having cable, I do all of my viewing through streaming or Twitch, so I was a regular on their Twitch channel. Due to work scheduling, the shows I watched the most were “Invitation to Party”, “Attack of the Show”, and “Attack of the Show : Vibe Check”.
I had gotten really good and really fast at screen-shotting things from Twitch to post on Twitter as I would make silly commentary about.. whatever it was they were talking about at the time.. but on this episode of Vibe Check, Kevin, Gina, and Will were playing a game of “Would You Rather”… and the question was, ‘Would you rather watch your parents have sex forever, or have sex with your parents once’. As the discussion devolved even further (yes… further…), I believe it was Will who joked that the new G4 tag line had been changed from “We Never Stopped Playing” to “We Never Stopped Fucking”. I immediately dug up a picture of G4’s tag line that they had in neon in their offices…
and turned it into this…..
which I tweeted out to them with the caption of “I like what you’ve done with the place….”.
The beauty of their twitch stream was that during a commercial break, the cameras were still on on the stream, so you could see them checking their phones and such. Well, Gina checks her phone and starts laughing before turning her phone to show Kevin, who also starts laughing but… as she turned her phone I thought…”wait.. was that my twitter post?” They come back from break.. and the rest… as they say.. is history.
I’m still sad to know G4 is gone, but I’m glad I got to see them return, and this clip will live on forever.
-PCR
[BLOG] Hatton Wants Better Gameshows
Tagged BlogOver the last couple of weeks I’ve watched a handful of newer gameshows. A couple of them are in the style of the studio game shows we know from being sick on a school day, and one reality show. I didn’t hate any of them, but I most definitely didn’t like them, either. So let’s discuss the problems.
The first batch we’ll call the Modern gameshow. In a studio, with an audience, but each one of them is using the ‘So You Want To Be A Millionaire’ or ‘Deal or No Deal’ approach which is to slow down the content with tremendous amounts of hemming and hawing. The Box features challenges inside of a weird cube. Everything about this show I enjoyed except for the fact that a single question or challenge can last an entire segment between breaks. Cheat involves 4 people cheating on trivia questions, but each set of questions comes with a round of ‘Who was the cheater’ where the host vamps unendingly to stretch out that timeframe.
Why do they do it? Because if everyone is tense, the stakes must be important… but when you compare it to the cornball silliness of Price is Right or the spitfire trivia of Jeopardy, it all looks like the show is playing at 45 rpm.
The reality show was a newer NBC jam, The Traitors though.. this show.. it’s almost there. The good is that it has over a dozen people in the house, there are Traitors who will ‘Murder’ every night and the object is to figureeout who they are and vote them out. This should sound familiar to anyone who has played Werewolf or Mafia or Secret Hitler. Along the way there are challenges to increase the winnings and dramatic discussions about people acting weird. The problem here is, in all of those listed games, there is a mechanism for the “good guys” to solve the mystery. In this show… there weren’t. The Traitors weren’t even incentivized to screw up tasks like The Mole (which is enjoyable as hell). If the traitors say nothing, they’re playing the same game as everyone else. Votes are arbitrary based on people over-reading each other.
These shows are all almost there, and I hope as we continue to move to a streaming, watch at 1.25x, fast forwarding world, we can get back to game shows that feel like there are stakes without big synthesizer breaks and lighting to signal us to be interested because until then… I’m not.
[BLOG] PCR’s Current Jams : Revisited
Tagged 2023, Blog, MusicHey Somethings!
So, I get in these weird music.. ruts? Trenches? Time Loops? Not sure what you’d call them, but I inevitably end up stumbling across a song I enjoy that I haven’t heard in *years* and that leads me down this rabbit hole of stumbling across other songs in an amazingly frenetic headlong dash… much like a Tesla at a school crossing. So without further ado, here’s what’s currently been playing in my ride…
Take On Me – Reel Big Fish
I don’t think I ever fell in ‘love’ with Ska as a musical type, there are just certain songs/bands I enjoy that happen to be Ska bands. I first discovered my enjoyment of Reel Big Fish on the BASEketball soundtrack and this song immediately grew on me. Great cover, great song.
Click Click Boom – Saliva
Probably the only song I could ever actually tell you Saliva did (I couldn’t name another Saliva song), this one was part of my karaoke repertoire back in the “Before Times”. One day, I’ll get back to karaoke… and I’ll probably dust this song off.
Inside Out – Eve 6
Another karaoke staple of mine from days gone by, I forgot how much I love this song until it wormed it’s way into my YouTube “mix” randomly. There’s just a certain drive in this song that I dig, and it’s one of my favorite songs to sing harmony to.
Butterfly – Crazy Town
I’m sensing a pattern here.. all these songs were released between ’98 and ’01. Another band that I can only name one song from, this song takes me back to a time when you couldn’t beat The Wiz, Napster was brand new, and “I See Dead People” was blowing people’s minds.
How about you? What’s been shuffling around on YOUR playlist? Hit our socials and let us know!
– PCR
[BLOG] A Little Something About Hatton’s MCU Hype….
Tagged BlogI recently recognized that I am falling behind on Marvel movies. When we look at the journey to the fight with Thanos, I was there. New movie – new me watching it. I was so invested in the joining of the Avengers and the big story to get there.
THen what happened.
They beat Thanos and nowwww… ok, look, I was similarly invested in Wandavision and I think it may be one of the best things DizMar ever did in terms of scope, visual style, and just plain weirdness. I was even invested in Falcon and Winter Soldier, albeit I had no problem waiting until the whole thing had been posted online to give it a glance.
But what of your Thors and AntMans and even your Wakanda Forevers?
I’ll get to them.
I know the great bubble we lived in messed up the release schedule and it is only now that we’re seeing the Marvel U try and get back to its big chapter 2, but … where’s the hype? Where’s the ‘oooooooooooooh’ moments that make us need to see the next installment? It feels like DizMarvel has lost them. The MCU feels lived in and you can show up in your pj’s if you want, but there is no urge to go running to the movies like I did for Captain America.
Then again, it may just be me burned out on comic movies until the X-Men comes… because the few glimpses that they are on their way as made my head pop up like an excited puppy.
[BLOG] PCR’s Top 5 “Unanswered Mysteries” from LOST
Tagged Blog, Lost, TVLook.. let’s face it.. Hatton and I feed off each other’s creativity. Hatton makes a blog last week referencing LOST.. and it sits in my brain until I have to let it out. I’d make some pithy joke about it being like entering The Numbers into Desmond’s computer, but.. I liked Desmond, and this post is about the other side of things.
19 years later, these are my Top 5 Unanswered Mysteries from LOST
5 – What the hell was the Cork in the Pond in the Cave?
Out of all the things I WASN’T expecting to see in the ‘Heart of the Island’.. was a kiddie-sized wading pool carved out of rock with a big cork stopper in it.
I mean… what?
Was this an analogy for the writers being so pent up with unanswered BS from previous seasons is was akin to a stopper in the pool of their creative brain? I mean, that would have been a better explanation than whatever they had for.. whatever that was.
4 – Annie
No, not the redheaded, pupil-less orphan, I’m talking about the only friend a young Ben Linus had while growing up in the Dharma Initiative. Did you forget about her? So did the show. Lindelhoff and Cuse went so far on the DVD commentary for “The Man Behind the Curtain” to say that she was going to be a ‘huge part of upcoming storylines’…. SO big apparently, she was mentioned in one episode ever and then promptly never heard from again.
3 – Horace’s Cabin
I was convinced we were going to get some kind of answers about the island once the survivors found this… the circle of ash around it.. the person in the chair.. but, much like a lot of the rest of the show, it got ‘weird’ without ever being really explained. Some of the biggest ‘huh?’s.. why could it move around the island? What was the circle of ash keeping in (or out)? Who broke the circle? Why… 19 years later do I care?
2 – Libby
I thought Libby overall as a character was great, and I enjoyed that she was a love interest for Hurley. Hurley did keep mentioning that he felt like he knew her from somewhere, and it turns out they were both in Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute at the same time. Why did they not remember each other? Was it the same reason Ben Kenobi didn’t recognize R2?
1 – Walt being ‘Special’
The BIGGEST “wtf” letdown of the show in my opinion. They tease up Walt being special, even show us him (apparently?) telekenisis-ing birds into a glass door… he ‘seems’ to be able to make things he thinks about happen, but we’re never given proof that it’s not more than coincidence.. I mean.. he MUST be right? Why else would Hurley and Ben convince him to go back to the island to ‘help Michael’ even though Michael is dead? According to Lindelhoff, Walt is special “because he is”. Thanks Damon…
What about you? What are some of YOUR biggest unsolved issues with LOST? Let us know at all the usual places!
– PCR
[BLOG] Why Does Hatton Keep Going Back….
Tagged 2023, BlogLook, it’s a well established fact that the Somethingcast has a loved/hate relationship with Lost. It’s the sort of sad kind of relationship you read about in the first half of tawdry romances when things are so beautiful… the fair buxom maiden meets the constantly oily broad shouldered man and they make sweet love on an island where a plane crashed in one of the greatest television openers of all time. Then the pair reveal their history piece by piece, the mysteries getting ever thicker. The questions ever deeper…
…and then it’s revealed that the hunky man actually was the same bloated corpse of a guess you had in the first season and he wastes three seasons of his life plodding over garbage like how he got his tattoo.
Yes, I know this metaphor fell apart two paragraphs ago. Yes, I am also aware we are the buxom maiden in this.
The point is – Lost invited a lot of copycats. Shows that were built around a solitary mystery or weird happening that we have revealed excessively small detail at a time. And yet.. for some reason.. I watch them thinking that they will be different and the reveals will justify the incomprehensible journey. The fact is, once a show like that goes longer than a season, if the mysteries were amazing in the first half, the only way to keep your attention once you have the answer is to create mysteriouser mysteries. And yet… I watch.
Here’s a few shows I’ve given at least one season and the show I’m currently engaged with and looking forward to the moment it lets me down.
Persons Unknown – 2010 – Starring Alan ‘Cameron, Ferris Bueller’s Friend’ Ruck and a young Chadwick Boseman, a handful of people wake up in a weird hotel filled with puzzles only to escape and find out they are in an almost empty 1950s town except for all the weird people with weird puzzles run by a weird corporation called ‘The Program’. It ends with them “escaping” … but they only wake up in a weird hotel. Weird. Not really.
I-Land – 2019 – A shockingly recent entry into the ‘We Learned Nothing From Lost’ novel of failed television shows, a bunch of people wake up on an island with amnesia and are assholes to each other until they find out that they’re in virtual reality prison for some reason. You’ll ask ‘..but why..’ a lot, but since it had a 3% Rotten Tomatoes rating, you’ll never find out the answer.
The Wilds – 2020 – Even more recently, a bunch of women get stranded on an island due to a plane crash and say ‘fuck’ a lot. Oh, and also there’s a secret experiment by a mysterious overseer and we learn all about how they’re interconnected through flashbacks. Were they even trying!?
And now, The Manifest – 2018 – The elevator pitch here is ‘Ok, what if we have a Lost show, but the plane doesn’t crash’. Instead, the passengers jump five years ahead in time and have to deal with the world as a mysterious magical, mystical, scientific, religious, historical voice (no, seriously, all of those) tells them to do things to fix the world. There are also flashbacks and logic jumps so mind boggling, I don’t know how I’m in the middle of Season 3 and the last part of the show got picked up by Netflix.
Maybe one day I’ll talk about the ones that don’t suck. Sound off on your favorites and thanks for enjoying my pain.
[BLOG] Upcoming movies PRC is (and isn’t) looking forward to
Tagged 2023, Blog, MoviesHey Somethings! PCR here!
I’ll start by saying, if you’re a member of our Patreon you can HEAR our blogs now! If you’re not, head over and check it out, help support our show, and get your Something early, uncut and unedited!
So, there are a LOT of movies coming our in 2023. Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one in the theater… but I do have a list of movies that I’m hyped to see (either in theater, or streaming) and some that… I’m not so hyped about. Let’s get to it!
Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania (Hyped)
The first Ant-Man movie to me was… ok. Wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible.. but fun. Ant-Man and The Wasp was a bit of a better offering, but I still feel the strength of that movie was in the moving along of the greater MCU narrative at the time. I don’t think Quantumania will be any different. I’m predicting an “ok” movie what will be amazingly overshadowed by setting up Jonathan Major’s Kang flexing as the MCUs next Big Bad.
Air (Hyped)
You don’t have to be a huge basketball fan (I’m not) to know the name “Michael Jordan” and what he did for the sport. Directed by Ben Afleck and staring Ben, Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina and Marlon Wayans, this is the story about how a sneaker company struggling to find it’s identity went all in on a rookie who just would just happen to turn out to be the GOAT.
Fast X (Hyped)
Not crazy about it being “the first part” of a two part story wrapping up the Fast and Furious franchise, but whenever you get Dom and his crew together, you know two things going in. 1) You’re going to see some 0utlandishly entertaining stuff and 2) It’s all about family.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Hyped)
I hope this is Ford’s last crack of the whip. Crystal Skull was… not good, and I’m hoping this instalment rights the ship before finding a way to move on for the future. Based off Ford’s on comments on how impressed he was with the ‘de-ageing’ footage, I’m hoping to see equal parts current and flashback to avoid the suspension of disbelief of an 80 year old Indy still adventuring.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Not Hyped)
Wasn’t a fan of the second movie, it kind of felt uninspired to me. I enjoy Pratt as Star Lord.. but in small doses. We’ll see how this one fits in to the new arc the MCU will be taking, but I don’t feel the urge to run right out and see this though I’ll likely catch it on streaming once it’s out… eventually.
The Flash (Not Hyped)
Fun Fact : I dislike Ezra Miller. I didn’t like his Flash in either version of The Justice League, and I could honestly care less about his solo film. The ONLY thing that will make me possibly watch it is the return of the best Batman ever. If I watch this, I won’t be watching a Flash movie, I’ll be tolerating The Flash in a Michael Keaton Batman movie.
What are some movies YOU’RE looking forward to (or not)? Hit us on our socials and let us know!
– PCR