Face-Off

From IMDB - "A young hockey player becomes an overnight star of the Toronto Maple Leafs and falls in love with a beautiful young singer. Their relationship is plagued by his "jock" nature and decadent lifestyle."

I first heard about Face-Off when reading Derek Sanderson's biography, which is great; you should read it. Derek Anderson is one of several real professional hockey players to have speaking roles in Face-Off.  George “Chief” Armstrong has the biggest role, he's a proper character who is a kind of mentor to the movie's main character rookie Maple Leaf Billy Duke.  

I don't watch a lot of dramas, so I have no idea if Face-Off is a good example of the genre. It's not really a sports movie, not like Rocky or anything. Hockey is there to represent society with all its rules and violence and all that good stuff. I think we're supposed to agree with the filthy pot smoking hippies in the movie. I don't. Sherri is a nice girl having her life ruined by the hippies. She needs strength and order in her life; she needs Billy, but he realizes that it is too late to save her. It's all very tragic.  

 I like Face-Off. It's a window into a Canada that doesn't exist anymore. The hockey footage of 70's NHL games is great. Look at all those guys without helmets flying around, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, and a bunch of all-time greats.   

The DVD I have has a parody done by SCTV in the '80s with John Candy as Billy, and Rick Moranis as The Chief, it's funny. Good stuff. 

I'd recommend Face-Off. 

Streets of Fire

 

Streets of Fire is a great movie. Awesome soundtrack, especially the two songs by Jim Steinman, Nowhere Fast and Tonight is what it means to be young. The movie has such a cool vibe, like the tag line says, it's A Rock & Roll Fable. Really unique. You should watch it.

Hello

 I'm still here.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series and Star Wars prequels nostalgia.

I hope the Obi-Wan show is good. The trailer was a little underwhelming, but man that music, that got me. Duel of Fates, and A Hero Falls, the prequels had the best music in Star Wars and hearing them in the trailer was awesome. Bring on the prequel nostalgia, I'm ready! What Ewan McGregor says here, about making the series for people who grew up with and love the prequels, that speaks to me because the prequels are my Star Wars. 

Oh my gosh, well I loved playing him again. I mean it’s quite interesting, after the experience of making the first three films and living through sort of their reception in the world, which wasn’t always glowing, I have to say. And then now, meeting the generation who we made those films for, the children then - and now, people in their late teens or early twenties, those people who were kids who we made those films for, they loved them. To them, they’re their Star Wars films, you know? For us, it was the original films of the ‘70s, but for them, it was our films were their Star Wars. So to step back into his shoes again now and do a series, a whole series about Obi-Wan Kenobi for those fans, it just makes me really happy.”

My introduction to Star Wars was the re-release of the original trilogy special editions on VHS. I rented them from Blockbuster and loved them. Right around that time though the hype machine started for Phantom Menace and I was right on board. Movies seemed bigger in the 90's, Jurassic Park was huge, Batman was everywhere, Godzilla hype was bigger than the Kaiju itself, but Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, now that was an event. It was everywhere! I collected all the Pepsi cans, had the toys from KFC, Episode 1 Racer on N64! Podracer lego sets! Finally going to see Episode 1 in theaters was the greatest night of my life. I loved it. All the prequels, they're wonderful. I really hope the Obi Wan show does them and the character justice. New Disney Star Wars has not been kind to legacy characters. 

Weird and exciting movies.

Mike and Jay from Red Letter Media talk about Gremlins 2: The New Batch.



The Gremlins movies are great. I missed the growing up and watched both movies for the first time a few years ago, they're wonderful. Weird and exciting movies.

DOOM Eternal E3 2019

We got a new trailer for DOOM Eternal at E3 2019. It's looking good. DOOM 2016 was an awesome game and I can not wait to play Eternal.

Star Trek Discovery Season 2

Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 was so bad. Easily the worst season of any TV show I've ever seen. It started off not bad, with episodes like New Eden it seemed like they'd learned their lesson from season 1 and started making an actual Star Trek show. Then a few episodes in it changed and turned into one big convoluted mess of nonsense. This probably happened because the original showrunners were fired and Alex Kurtzman took over the show. He obviously has no idea what Star Trek is or how to write a good show. If you think STD is bad, and it is, I can't imagine what the other Star Trek shows will be like. At least Bryan Fuller, a guy who knows Star TRek, was involved in creating Discovery, the new show, Star Trek: Picard, Lower Decks, and the animated teen show, are going to be pure Kurtzman. It's going to be bad.

Anyway, here's a fun video from Red Letter Media, it sums up Season 2 perfectly. Only thing this video is missing is lots of needless camera movement. Good stuff, I can't wait for Mike's season 2 review.


https://redlettermedia.com/star-trek-discovery-season-2-in-a-nutshell/