Random Thoughts-Will & Grace & Roseanne Reboots

So this year we got two 90’s shows brought back to life in the form of Roseanne and Will & Grace. Word is next year we’ll get Murphy Brown as well. So, the big question is how were these reboot’s?


Here are my thought real quick :




And yes I know Roseanne is still halfway through it’s very mini season but I’ve seen enough episodes to comment on it. And honestly, it doesn’t feel like the same show. It feels more like someone trying to copy the show. Yes the characters are there and recognizable but it doesn’t have that “real” feeling either. It feels like if Roseanne made a new show for today and just had the same cast in there. They are also trying too hard to be topical. The Trump love in the first episode, Roseanne’s over the top punishment of her granddaughter in the second episode, Darlene’s son wearing dress feels painfully forced and not realistic, Becky’s surrogacy makes no sense and is dropped before it even begins, and while it was great to see Johnny Galecki reprise his David character did they have to make him such a dead beat dad that Dan wont even allow him in the house? And why the heck has DJ hardly had two lines? There were some funny gags and I laughed at times but the feel is just not there. I don’t mind the retcon that keeps Dan alive but it just feels, off. The laughter even felt forced, like a terrible laugh track. There are four more episodes so maybe I will change my mind but so far the show feels off the mark.




Unlike Will & Grace which nails it. Maybe because the creative team is basically the same right down to director Jim Burrows. As I noted elsewhere they did a big retcon basically eliminating the final season of the regular run. And since that season (especially that last episode) sucked, it’s no big loss. It does feel like the same show, ok maybe not Season 1 when it was new but certainly not as old and stale as it got. It’s not perfect, the Trump stuff is a little much especially in the first episode which was almost worst than on Roseanne, and some of the guest spots from the old days were basically there to wink at the audience and offer very little. The worst was Alec Baldwin who comes onto the scene as if he’d been there all along. Sure. Some of the stories got icky like Will and Grace having sex with the same guy and another where it turned out Grace had sex with three generations of the same family, but that’s what Will & Grace did. The characters felt the same with Grace being Slothen, Will being alone, Jack being man hungry and Karen the rich socialite. But while the same it was clear their lives had evolved since the original run. They did a nice tribute when they killed off Rosario (the actress didn’t want to return) and their Christmas episode was…..interesting. So overall, I liked it. Was every episode perfect? No I got bored a few times. But it wasn’t awful and I look forward to its return.



IMDB kind of summed up my feelings as it had Will & Grace’s new episodes added as if it was just another season while Roseanne’s was under a totally different show as if it weren’t the same show that we loved in the 90’s.


That’s it for now, agree or disagree? Comment and let me know.

My 10 Least Favorite Superman Comics

Last weeks to celebrate Action Comics #1000 I spent a lot of time talking about my favorite Superman stories. FYI, Action #1000 was fantastic and is worth the money. So is the excellent book that came out with it!

So after all that gushing it’s only fair to mention a few that weren’t quite as good. Like last time, these aren’t The WORST Superman stories per se, just the one’s that I did not enjoy. Course there are plenty more than 10, but this is what I came up with. They can’t all be gems and these stories sure aren’t.

 

Here are ten awful Superman stories, in my opinion anyway




Superman #405

I said before that Superman titles before the Crisis reboot seemed stuck in the Silver Age. This one is a great example of what I mean. Superman blows a Pan flute at a local museum, and grows horns! Yes, really. And this was made in the 80’s! In order to not be seen that way he wears a Batman cowl to cover up his head, but can’t pull off Batman’s shtick.

A Look at Comic Book Homage Covers

Hey remember the other day in my Action Comics article when I mentioned this issue:




What I didn’t mention was that this cover is an homage cover, harking all the way back to Superman #1 in 1940!



Comic Book covers are very important, they have to get your attention and make you want to pick up the mag and buy it. Sometimes however a cover iwll be so amazing, so memorable, and well rendered that it sparks homages. This is where the cover is bascially repeated, just with different art work and characters. These are always really cool to see and can happen across companies or by the same company, and even artist!


There are literally TONS of these out there but I did some digging and managed to find a few of my favorites. Here are some fantastic comic book cover homages:

Superman and The Flash have been racing ever since the Silver Age it seems, and every time they do the cover almost always evokes the same image

Celebrating Action Comics #1000-My 20 Favorite Superman Comics

 

My friends April 18, 2018 is a big day if you’re a fan of Superman as I am. Not only is it the 80th anniversary of our beloved hero, but DC Comics is releasing the 1000th issue of Action Comics on this date. We’ll ignore that technically there have been more issues of that with the odd numbering changes over the years and just say-WOW! Do you think when Siegel and Shuster created that first issue in 1938 it ever occurred to them that there would be 999 more? Or that the character would become the icon he has?

 

So I wanted to do something special. I’ve talked about the movies to death. The TV shows need more love but that didn’t seem appropriate here. I have done articles on the comics discussing team-up’s and holiday stories but I never really discussed my favorite Superman comics that aren’t team-up’s or events. So to celebrate the 80th anniversary and release of Action Comics #1000, that’s what we’ll do today.

 

To be clear, these aren’t The Greatest Superman Stories (though a few sure apply) these are my favorites. The stories I love and have a read a million times. So as you might guess some obvious choices are going to be missing. Either because I didn’t like them or I never read them. I usually try to keep a decent date range in stuff like this but most of these are from the same era. I can’t stand the silver age stuff and I stopped reading twenty years ago so there isn’t to much recent that I can list here.

 

I know 20 is a lot but it could have been even more! As you might expect there were a few and I had to cut some to keep this from going forever. I am including all Superman titles not just Action Comics, and these will be in publication order. Course if I included his appearances in other comics….man there are a lot of stories out there!

Superman #247

Stupid cover aside, this is a good story about Superman questioning whether or not he has really done any good. As he impeded the progress of humans rather than helping? Issues like this weren’t raised in 1972 making this a unique tale. For some reason the Superman books seemed stuck in the silver age right through the 80’s with their tease covers and goofy stories.

Underrated Trek:Defiant (DS9)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. I once did a list of Top 50 Trek episodes and in an honorable mention article included one or two that were eyebrow raising since no one really though they were good. This was one of them.I want to like this episode…but it’s so boring! Since I have briefly mentioned this one in passing but never done a full review for it, let’s take a closer look. This is:

Of course we met Thomas Riker in “Second Chances” on TNG, and a follow up on DS9 seemed like a fantastic idea. However….

Random Thoughts-Channel Awesome (sigh)

I didn’t want to talk about this. I really, really didn’t. When it all began I tried to ignore it, since it was mostly on twitter that wasn’t hard all it meant was ignoring the people talking about it (or even blocking them). FYI if you don’t know what I am referring to well it’s all over the place so no need to rehash it here. Anyway, I tried to ignore it. Why is that? Because that site and contributors has come to mean a lot to me. I’ve talked about the how and why in other articles and will not bore everyone by repeating it. Suffice to say, I loved the glory days of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com and without them I would not be doing this at all.

10 Greatest Superhero Intro Scenes in Movies

There are some rules you have to follow to make a super hero movie. One of them is, the first time we see our hero has to be the most badass moment ever! They can be suiting up for the first time or already in action, but it has to be something which gets our attention and makes us roar.

Some fail at this, like Steel because the suit looked to silly. Or in Green Lantern when Hal Jordan finally becomes the hero in an admittedly strong scene…only to turn back to Hal and go out with his girlfriend (what was that about?). And sadly The Hulk transformation scenes are ruined by the lame CGI they used, I prefer the original TV version of how Banner transformed.


But when it works, it gives us a scene that defines our hero and makes us scream “Oh hell yes!”. Now I am not talking about the opening scenes  of the movies (though I am for at least one) but the scene where we first finally get to see our hero, in all their glory!



Here are what I think are ten of the best, in no particular order.



Superman
One scene from the first movie I always loved was when we first see Superman, in costume and flying to save Lois Lane. Her reaction was always a big laugh “You’ve got me? Whose got you!!”. This is the scene that made everyone say “Yes this really is Superman!!”

Underrated Trek:Second Chances (TNG)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Some episodes are just kind of, forgettable. They aren’t bad but they aren’t remarkable and just kind of slip under the radar. Today I wanted to talk about an episode that should have been great, and instead was only ok. This is:

The plot device of a having a double, especially in sci fi, is certainly nothing new. So what makes this one unique? Let’s see:

Top 6 Favorite Scores from Danny Elfman

So my look at movie composers continues with Danny Elfman. He’s done a bunch of movie and TV work, of course a lot of it was for Tim Burton. Course the big question you probably have is, why only 6??? I really couldn’t find 4 more??? Honestly I am not the biggest fan of his stuff. It just sounds so repetitive, and unlike the other composers I discussed the movies that I’ve seen that he worked on is not long. Not to diminish his amazing talent or wide range of work.

But I do like some of it, so here we go :




#6.Mission:Impossible
How do you take a catchy yet bland TV theme and make it rock? Ask Danny Elfman who turned that simple theme into this metal tune. The movie was awful and confusing, but damn that theme rocks!!

My Top 9 Star Wars Movie Endings

I wanted to do something Star Wars related and was trying t come up with a different idea. Then I remembered one of my favorite parts of every Star Wars movie. The ending. No not the final action scene, I mean the literal final minute or two of the movie. These moments are always so strong, as they wrap everything up with minimal dialogue just that beautiful music either assuring that things are well or informing us that the worst is yet to come. And they always end with that cut to the credits and the Star Wars fanfare. I love that!!!!

So here are now are my top 9 favorite Star Wars outro’s. From the sillier one’s that were kinda lame to the one’s that left me with chills, and wanting more. And obviously, spoilers for these movies.



#9.The Last Jedi
Maybe it’s unfair to put this one so high. Despite its problems I really enjoyed this movie. But the ending didn’t do anything for me. It was like the director saying “FYI this is who is going to save the day next time!”. Yay excitement. I was hoping the last shot was that one on the rebel ship, that was good.