Traditionally the new year in TV starts in the Fall. New shows get launched, old faves make their return, and all is happy in TV land for folks that glue themselves to the boob tube. But in this era of summer shows, cable programming, and a crazy amount of shows appearing on networks of all sorts... well, lets just say the game has changed a bit. But one thing is still holding true, and it is that most of the "new" shows being introduced come out in September & October. So in typical CCD fashion we are going to talk about it... the new, the returning, and everything in between. It is just how we do it here at CCD! So join Jedi Rob, the lovely Alicia Gomes, and filmmaker Leland James as they present the "2015 CCD Fall TV Preview"...
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In one of the best openings of any show I have ever seen, a cop on his beat in crowded Times Square sees an abandoned white duffel bag. Major security alert especially when he also sees the message on a tag on the bag informing him to call the FBI. After the usual security precautions everyone is startled when something moves inside the bag and out pops a gorgeous, totally naked woman; her body covered in tattoos. WOW. Now I got to learn more.
I just read the Entertainment Weekly review of Blindspot in which they gave the show a grade of C. What do they know anyways?
After losing out on the Wonder Woman gig to Gal Gadot, Jaimie Alexander might have found a nice place to land with this one. That is of course if they can make sure that they reveal just enough of the mystery to keep me going and guessing each week. I want this one to be like 24. I want a hyper reality and I want at least some of my damn questions answered as we move towards SOME kind of truth. I am sick and tired with investing in a long series only to be let down. I will only reward a few shows with my precious time and Blind Spot may be one of the leading contenders this television season.
Last year's 13 episode gems (Daredevil, How To Get Away With Murder) proved my theory that fluff and filler has to go the way of the dinosaur if a genre show is to survive. Watch me be proven right this year on Gotham which dragged it's ass around for half of lasts year's laborious 22 plus episode season. We don't need it anymore. Hell, Agent Carter told a great story in half that number of episodes and it was thrilling to be a part of. I will let you be the judge as to whether eight episodes helped or hurt the first two seasons of True Detective.
Anyway, the girl in the bag has extensive military training but can't remember anything about her personal life or her past. Very selective amnesia going on here. I was hoping that little piece of the plot would be explained in such a way that I can drop it as a question in my mind. Thankfully they did that.
Jane Doe is immediately sympathetic and you want her suffering to end. I kept trying to watch this show from her perspective. To imagine how a person in that situation would feel. To not know WHY all this terrible stuff is happening to you would be frightening. That was the power of this opening episode.
Great cast as well. Jaimie Alexander is very good and plays the right mix of rage of fear that the role requires to be even half ways believable. I bought the whole premise based mostly on her performance. I think we might have missed out on a very good Wonder Woman.
The FBI seem to want to help her especially when we find she can speak and read Chinese and that vital clue helps with stopping a possible terrorist event. This was a nice twist that gave Jane Doe a reason to be in the field despite being such a valuable asset.
The information comes at you fast and furious. The best part being that the FBI agent Kurt Weller has his name tattooed on the mystery woman's back. Why his name so prominently displayed? Someone is obviously trying to make a point. Man, I love a high concept but you know what I say about high concept. You have to go full retard on the execution or nothing will work. I am as much interested in the process of this story as the actual story itself. This one can go either way. It's either will crash and burn under the weight of it's story or it will shine because of that kind of insane complicated mythology.
Weller (Sullivan Stapleton from the excellent Strike Back) himself is no slouch. He has a great mind for investigation and the resources to find the truth. This is a slick presentation. The show thinks as fast as I do or at least the pilot did. I like that kind of storytelling. I like being there as the mystery unfolds. I can hold a lot of clues in my head so pass them out to me. Just please have everything pay off in the end. This one definitely makes me want to come back for more.
The fight choreography is also excellent and Jaime Alexander is more than up to the challenge. Nice use of the New York setting as well.
All in all one of the strongest opening episodes I have seen in several seasons. I want to see where this one goes in the future.
We sure do love our pro wrestling over here at CCD, so we decided to go back to the well and have another wrestling themed episode for all of our fans to listen to. Jedi Rob brought back founder of the first unpredictable card game Steve Resk (buy a Supershow game right now!) and one of the hosts of the Breaking Kayfabe Radio Podcast Christopher Guardino along for the ride! They are breaking down WWE's Night of Champions, talking wrasslin', and having a typical awesome CCD time while doing it!!! Get in there....
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Labor Day is a National Holiday here in the US meant to give thanks to the working man (and woman... sheeeessshhhh!) of this great nation in recognition of their hard work all year long. They are given a Monday off and it is kind of like a tip of the ole hat... Thanks for all the hard work! What it usually signifies for most is a wondrous three day weekend that signals the culmination of yet another summer. Fall is approaching, the kids get ready for school, and for workers its just a day off.... a pretty great one because the weather is usually dope. So in honor of this summer ending holiday we got the CCD Podcast crew in studio to record a look back at some of the best "working man" movies of the past. Jedi Rob joins forces with BrooklynOne's own Anthony Marino and documentary filmmaker extraordinaire Leland James to reminisce about films that focus on good hard work....
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There is something that happens to a person when they become the 'flavor of the week'. No matter why they are getting attention, the offers for movie and TV projects just seem to flood in. All of those promises of riches are hard to resist and can lead to one's downfall when they are no longer 'hot' (I'm looking at YOU, Mr. T.) MMA darling Ronda Rousey is at that place in her hot career.
Ronda Rousey made her mark as the first female MMA fighter that you have actually heard of. Her fame comes from taking out her last opponent in only 14 seconds and from having a reputation as being a genuine badass who can walk the talk when it comes to fighting. I doubt few if any of us regular guys could last a full round with her in the ring. In fact, she would punish us extra hard for even daring to face her in the first place.
She is also an attractive girl so a role in a superhero movie was a no-brainer. This art has been circulating the webs for awhile now and there is no denying that she would make a fantastic Captain Marvel by looks alone. The woman in those art pieces is Carol Danvers. Someone powerful enough to battle armies in space. Captain Marvel is one of Marvel Comics' 'Cosmic' superheroes and therefor will be a central player in the whole Infinity War series of films that we are expecting in the future. This is the time to cast someone to play such an important part. The person has to both act and look the part.
I you wondered just who Captain Marvel is this is from her Wiki page.
Danvers possesses superhuman strength and durability, can fly at roughly six times the speed of sound, retains her Seventh Sense, and discharge explosive blasts of radiant energy, which she fires from her fingertips. She also demonstrates the ability to absorb other forms of energy, such as electricity, to further magnify her strength and energy projection, up to the force of an exploding nuclear weapon. When sufficiently augmented, she can withstand the pressure from a 92-ton weight, and strike with a similar level of force, although Hank Pym theorized that this likely was not her limit.Danvers cannot absorb magical energy without consequence, though she aided Dr. Stephen Strange in the defeat of the mystic menace Sir Warren Traveler. Carol Danvers is also an exceptional espionage agent, pilot, hand-to-hand combatant and marksman.
But can she act?
She can schmooze with the best of them and be playful when she needs to be. Personally I would love to see her host SNL. Could be a breakout move for her. She might be a naturally born comedienne.
She must have a sense of humor because I read this week that she is taking the role in a ROAD HOUSE remake where she would play the classic Patrick Swayze part as Dalton 'The Cooler'. The guy who takes to fighting when the patrons at some greasy bayou bar get out of hand. Rhonda would play that part even though she's a GIRL - see what they did there?
We all have seen this movie many times as it seems to play on an endless loop on Cable TV back in the 90s.
Now before you put down this idea lets give this one a second look.
We all remember ROAD HOUSE not only because it's a bad movie. We remember it because it's such a GREAT bad movie. It's one of those Hillbilly revenge fantasies that littered cable television at the dawn of the video age. Every hunky young star worth his salt who could still kick above his head made one. The story was always the same - loner with a past enters small town. Gets a job at bar. Meets cute bar maid who is single mom with cute kid. Town is being menaced by Evil Guy who runs rival bar. He has bikers for buddies and sends them after our hero who beats them down with skills he learned in his 'secret past'. Eventually our hero has to fight one last big guy before the Evil Guy is put down for good and the town in liberated.
ROAD HOUSE is by no means an Oscar winner, but for this storyline, it's just about as close as this kind of film could get to perfection. It's an audience film that is tremendously satisfying to watch, especially when all the assholes get what is coming to them. Swayze was at his charismatic best and we all forget how good an actor he really was. No stuntman for him either. He came to that picture ready to fight. I wonder how many babies born in 1990 were called Dalton?
Now you substitute a girl in the lead role and the story works just as well. Ronda is a returning war vet who gets a job at a nearby greasy bar as a waitress but after kicking the ass of someone who pinches her butt, she gets noticed by the owner who offers her job as his Cooler. Cue sound...and ACTION.
It's a no-brainer. It's an easy part to act and if she can handle the fight choreography this movie will make ten times the amount it would take to film it. Might even start a whole new genre of female kick ass films. Rousey can't lose by doing this one. Up her profile before she gets that Captain Marvel offer and Marvel locks her into the next decade.
As the summer winds down and the kiddies head back to school, we here at the CCD Podcast thought this was the perfect time to look back at some of the greatest summer vacation movies of all time. These are the movies that remind us of things we did when we were kids, and also the things we WISH we did when we were kids! This weeks crew includes filmmaker Leland James (The Fix), Brooklyn One's very own Anthony Marino, and our lovable host Jedi Rob and these guys will have you reminiscing about the June's, July's and August's of your youth!
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Even his name was scary….WES CRAVEN. A name that could crawl right off the page and strangle you if you read it too long. He was a man whose name, and nightmares, were of such notoriety, that they were specifically referenced in the formal title of a movie, (more on that later). Craven’s impact on pop culture cannot be overstated. Arguably the most influential horror director since Hitchcock, Craven’s films defined and then re-defined a genre for several generations.
Craven was 45 years old at the release of “A Nightmare on Elm St.” Not old by any means, but a far cry from the film school babies that he is often lumped in with. Craven understood the value of a life lived. He understood that you will have much more interesting things to say about life, in art, if you live it. James Cameron has expressed similar sentiments over the years. Craven has often attributed his extended success in movie making, to coming to horror, really coming to cinema in general, as an adult.
Long before he brought revolutions to a genre on multiple occasions, Craven was an undergraduate at the strictly religious Wheaton College in Illinois, in line with his upbringing. Interested in becoming a novelist, he eventually hitchhiked to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, eventually earning a master’s in philosophy and writing. He followed that with a teaching stint as a Professor of Humanities at Clarkson College of Technology in Potsdam, N.Y. Potsdam was a small college town, whose fraternity house happened to have it’s address at 18 'Elm Street.' Truly all of Craven’s life experiences informed the creation of his most popular character.
"Not recommended for persons over 30!" Ha!
Craven had begun his filmmaking career years before 'Freddy.' “The Last House on the Left” (1972) & “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977), two visceral films that pushed the limits of “acceptable cinema.” Last House on the Left especially shocked audiences and critics, and of course made teenagers NEED to see it by any means possible. It also made for a further estrangement from Craven’s strictly religious family, unable to understand how these gruesome sights could spring from the mind of such a nice boy. ‘Last House’ sparked a bit of a trend in the mid to late 70’s of hyper realistic brutal exploitation films. But of course Craven’s legacy still had further to go.
Freddy came after Michael, after Jason and after Leatherface, While he has from the get-go gotten lumped in with these other icons, Freddy has always been on a whole other platform. In truth Freddy has more in common with Dracula, a monster born of anger, obsessed with vengeance and able to conjure himself in many forms. Craven’s time in intellectual circles fueled the creation of Krueger. Every aspect of the character and story was created purposefully to take the audience through a psychological terror. Even the color of Freddy’s sweater was given specific attention, the colors chosen because the brain interprets these two shades in a way that make the viewer unsettled. I found Freddy at a young age, too young really. Initially an object of absolute unmeasurable fear, I eventually came to love Freddy as so many of my generation did. From the get go though, I always knew the name of the man who created Freddy. Probably the first film Director that I can remember actively being a fan of.
Freddy’s influence is astounding. It took New Line Cinema out of the back room and into the big leagues. Freddy was a bona fide cultural icon. Like Mickey Mouse. He spawned a TV show, video games, comic books, toys, showed up on talk shows. Everything except a Saturday morningcartoon, but I would wager every one of Freddy's father's that one got pitched at some point. The franchise carried on into the next decade.
The early to mid-nineties though were are a dark time for horror fans. The big boom of the 80’s had petered out, with the big characters either being killed off or being put to sleep with dismal box offices. The formula was broken, but luckily Wes Craven, had a new nightmare.
“Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” (which is it’s full formal title) saw the mastermind back in the Director’s chair for a 'Freddy' film for the first time since the original. He contributed as a writer for part 3, but otherwise remained largely uninvolved in the franchise through the 5 sequels, although his name was rarely went unmentioned when discussing the franchise in any way. His approach to New Nightmare was inspired. What if Freddy was real? What if the limited safety net we had as an audience member of, "it’s only a dream," or really, "it’s only a movie," were nullified. New Nightmare managed to provide a fresh take on the character and the property, while at the same time legitimizing the sequels in many ways. For really, you can’t have a story of Freddy being watered down and tired, without the movies that did just that.
'New Nightmare' is my 2nd favorite of the series, only giving ground to the original, but truly it is every bit as fantastic. I have on more than one occasion indulged in “The Craven Trilogy,” consisting of the original film, ‘Dream Warriors’ and 'New Nightmare.' I think I may do that tonight. "Wes Craven’s New Nightmare" is wholly unique, clever and aware of the where horror had come from and where it was heading. The audience had grown smart enough that the old tricks wouldn’t work anymore and Craven knew that. He had taught them too well.
Unfortunately the movie did not reach the audience it was looking for. Perhaps Freddy was just way too ingrained in culture, or maybe simply it was still too close to his heyday. I could see the movie playing that much better if it were released maybe 10 years later. While audiences maybe weren’t ready for Freddy to usher them into a new era of horror, they had no problem with his mastermind taking the reins to make them scream.
In 1996 when “Scream” was released, I approached it with my nose in the air. I fancied myself a horror veteran, already maintaining that air of snobbery and close mindedness that genre fans often exhibit. This was a kids movie, and even though I WASa teenager, I had no interest in this fancy sleek new slasher. That was of course until I saw it and realized it was made specifically for me.
This was a horror movie where the characters were my age and they were motivated by their love/fear of 80’s horror movies. The movie was rampant with self-referential winks and movie references that these days permeate every aspect of pop culture. By Craven’s own account, he was not a child of the movies. Raised as a fundamentalist Baptist, he cites “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) as being the first movie he recalls paying to see in a theater…as a senior in college. That did not stop him from observing a culture that was raised on movies, movies of a certain genre, his OWN movies at that. It all seemed so fresh, so clever and I ate it up. Wes Craven, without any hyperbole, had ushered in a new generation of horror. For me it was only fitting that the man who defined the genre for a generation of young people, did it again. Craven was 57 at this time.
The impact of Scream was enormous. For better or worse copycat movies littered theaters to varying levels of success for the next decade. Even the old ghouls like Michael Myers tried to jump on the bandwagon to get “Screamified.” The remake/reboot trend started to creep out it's ugly head in the early aughts and that has more or less carried us to the present day. Craven went back to the Scream well himself 3 times in serviceable sequels, the last of which being in 2011. “Scream 4” attempted to send up the remake trend that had become some rampant, but it didn’t spark the revolution that maybe some of us hoped. Two cultural revolutions for one man will have to suffice (3 counting 'Last House'). Craven himself was guilty of cashing in on the remake bandwagon being hands on with the big screen reboot of his ‘Hills Have Eyes’ property. Craven collaborated with his son Jonathan on the films, and they are widely regarded as being on the better side of the remake onslaught.
At times, early in his career, he displayed frustration with being labeled a horror Director, even wrestling with the idea of continuing after ‘Last House’ had made him so notorious. A friend at the time encouraged him to “get rid of that Protestant guilt and don’t be ashamed of what you do well.” Craven listened and honed his craft over the next 4 and ½ decades. Not every film Wes Craven had his name associated with bore the standard of excellence that his high profile works did. Although, even his lesser known works always had charm and wit. 1991’s “The People Under the Stairs” is one of the most unique and curious offerings of the era, presenting a deranged Alice in Wonderland like scenario in a suburban home. It’s one of my faves. “Shocker” (1989), “The Serpent and the Rainbow” (1988), and “Red Eye” (2005) all stand as examples of a filmmaker capable of producing entirely different experiences while still working in the same broad genre. He had one of the early big screen comic movies with "Swamp Thing" (1982), which wasn't well received by and large, but is one movie I wore out on VHS. He also dabbled in non-genre fare such as “Music of the Heart” (1999), which earned multiple Academy Award nominations. His most recent endeavor was overseeing the production of a TV series based on "Scream." Admittedly I haven’t had much interest, but it’s doing well and I have heard some good things so I may have to give it a shot. For nothing else I am glad there is a generation enjoying a product that has the DNA of Wes Craven in it, even if it’s not really for me anymore. While some of his outputs haven’t been met with the warmest receptions, there was always a little bit of excitement whenever he was rumored to be involved with a project, as if at any moment he could easily springboard to the head of the line and lead us into a new chapter of terror. Even when the recent rumors cropped up of yet ANOTHER ‘Nightmare’ movie, there were hopeful rumors that Craven may decide to dip his toe back in.
His private life was mostly just that. By all accounts he was a quiet, soft spoken man. Known for his calm, almost reassuring manner of speaking and his constant professional demeanor. Always neatly, conservatively, dressed, Craven was often met with surprise by the press and fans as they expected some sort of dark, silent, imposing horror maestro. He was an avid bird watcher, a few years ago joining the Audubon California board of directors, a group that is devoted to the conservation of birds and habitat.
I have long admired,"Wes Craven". Being a fan of his work and learning about it, also led me to learn a lot about the man behind it. I always enjoyed his interviews and commentaries. He seemed like the kind of guy who would be fun to have a drink with in the corner an old pub. He appreciated hard work, the application of knowledge and didn't let societal guidelines impact his work. Perhaps most importantly from a personal level,...took a genre seriously that was oft overlooked for being hokey, and made something that impacted countless people. He made horror, frightening, thoughtful, subversive and at times legitimately dangerous. He made horror "art."
I will leave you with this quote from the man himself, when asked why he thinks birds matter….
“One could cite facts like, birds eat lots of harmful insects, charm us at our feeders, or challenge us to learn their field marks, molts, and names both common and scientific. But perhaps the answer lies deeper. Since the beginning birds have lifted our eyes to the skies. They’ve shown us we’re not gravity’s slave, that flight is possible and limitless. It can hover and soar, dive and display, and take us from one end of the planet to the other in a single, impossible burst of energy and purpose. Inspiration is the gift birds have given us from the start. But now they give us a question as well. Like the canary in the mine, they hold the planet up to us like a mirror and ask: “Can you not see that if we pass away, soon you will as well?” That’s a good question, and since birds pose it, they matter a lot.”
Mr Craven, thank you for your time. You are forever in my nightmares.
