#reality gambit

Quick TV Reviews – The Season So Far Part 2

The Blacklist – I really am fond of The Blacklist. I’ve liked Spader since those old 80s movies like Tuff Turf and Less than Zero. As Raymond Reddington, it’s almost like Spader modeled the character from those films. While I like Spader in the role, I wasn’t very fond of the early “mystery” developed relating to Red and Elizabeth Keen. He was obviously going to be her father, so dragging the…

Review: Star Trek: Discovery – Lethe

One thing Star Trek: Discovery is going to have an issue with me is playing fast and loose with its own history. If this was a new show altogether without the Star Trek brand, or took place after events in Star Trek: Voyager, it might be easier to accept some of the changes, but the recent episode Lethe had me working extra hard to fit the new information into the 50 year timeline. First off,…

A Reflection of Cinema in 1982

When I did the review of the new Blade Runner last week, I recalled I saw the original the same week I saw Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and ET: The Extraterrestrial. I thought about how many films I saw in a theater that year. I went online and checked the list and my goodness did I see a lot of films that year! Making Love Quest for Fire Swamp Thing Porky’s Cat People Conan the Barbarian Dead…

Movie Review: Blade Runner 2049

When I realized there was going to be a Blade Runner 2049, I went on semi information silence. I obviously was curious about the new project, but I didn’t want to closely follow the production and obsess about every detail of the production. Blade Runner, like Star Wars, was a defining moment in my geek development. Much like Star Wars, it was a defining moment for a lot of people who caught the…

Marvel’s The Inhumans – I finally got a chance to see the much maligned 2 hour premiere of this show. I’m a little behind because I haven’t watched last Friday’s episode, which I will catch up to by this weekend. There’s not a lot I can recommend about this show because I found it boring. There was no Marvel excitement, no real drama and it was just there, I didn’t hate it, didn’t like it or love…

I feel guilty because I will have to wait to see Blade Runner 2049 next Wednesday. There was no time to see it Thursday and I’m at work every day until Wednesday. I haven’t heard much about the movie, other than watching a few trailers. When I saw the original version, it was at a small theater in San Diego, can’t remember which one, and I saw the movie before I saw ET: The Extraterrestrial. I…

Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

When I’ve gone to my YouTube feed the past few weeks, there have been numerous videos shot of reviews speculating and then commenting in the first two episodes of the new Star Trek: Discovery. The vast majority of the posts have done lots of speculation about the show. The most unusual speculation has been about nature of the main character for the series, Michael Bernham. It’s kind of a tossup…

Some quick observations from TV shows I saw last week: The Blacklist – Raymond Reddington is an interesting character with style and flair. The character is almost unbelievably over the top, with many of his exploits bordering on farce, but with the joy of James Spader chewing up the scenery it was giddy fun. Now that the worst kept secret in TV in recent years has been solved and the toppling of…