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/

Star Trek: Picard Trailer

The first trailer for Star Trek: Picard is here. What do you think?

Star Trek Picard: Remember TNG?!

Star Trek Picard: Remember TNG?!

Star Trek Picard! Remember Jean-Luc Picard? I do. It’s about time they moved on to Next Gen nostalgia, Star Trek has been milking "Remember Kirk and Spock" for the past decade. 

Look! It’s Patrick Stewart! He’s so old. It’s TNG uniforms! Kinda. The nostalgia is only getting started.

I’m not a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Captain Picard as a character so I’m not really looking forward to the new show. Doesn’t help that the people in charge of Star Trek, Alex Kurtzman and Co, are insane idiots who don’t get Star Trek. Discovery is awful and I expect Star Trek: Picard to be more if the same. 

But let's not get too negative, maybe Star Trek: Picard will turn out to be awesome. Maybe Season 3 of Discovery will be good. Maybe I'll win the lottery. Who knows!

1960's Tech running the IRS

LGR Tech Tales is one of my favorite series on YouTube. The most recent episode is all about the crazy fact that the United States tax system still runs on technology from the 1960's. It's a super interesting look at the development of the system back in the day and all the failed attempts to replace it, and the one day in 2018 when it all came crashing down. Check it out and if you like it be sure to subcribe to LGR on YouTube

Star Wars Episode IX Teaser Trailer Thoughts

The first teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode IX got released today. It doesn't show a whole lot but what's there looks pretty cool. Luke's voiceover, Rey and Kylo dong Jedi stuff, Finn and Poe doing Resistance stuff, and Lando and Chewie doing flying stuff. Also Death Star and the Emperor! Good stuff.

I hated Last Jedi but I'm not going to let that stop me from getting excited for Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald

One of my favourite bands, the Headstones, recently released a cover of one of my favourite songs, The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. Itès a great cover of a classic song.




The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald - Headstones

Dracula: Book vs The Movies

 James Rolfe from Cinemassacre put together a great video looking at all the Dracula films, trying to find out which one is closest to the original book.

 I've never actually read the book but I have seen quite a few different versions of the Dracula movies, it's neat to see all the different variations made over the past century.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motionless Picture! It sure is slow but I love it! The visuales and music in Star Trek: The Motion Picture are amazing. People laugh at the length of the scene but I just love it when Kirk and Scotty are just flying around admiring the refit Enterprise.

Mike from Red Letter Media is a huge Star Trek fan and he recently sat down with Canadian Jim and had an interesting discussion all about Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 

Enjoy! I did.  

 Star Trek: The Motion Picture – re:View

A new Stargate series

  At the recent GateCon event series co-creator Brad Wright said that MGM wants to do something with the Stargate franchise. Nothing to announce yet, but that there have been talks and MGM knows it's a popular franchise people want to see back.

I don't want to see a new Stargate series. Not after what happened to Star Wars and Star Trek when they came back. I couldn't stand seeing another one of my favourite franchises ruined. Maybe it would be good. If the same creative team came back for the revival there's chances it would be great. I don't know, all I know is I'd rather not take that chance. There are 17 seasons of Stargate and 3 movies, that's enough for me. 

A new Star Trek series

Mike and Rich from Red Letter Media talk about their ideas for the new Star Trek series starring Patrick Stewart.

 I'm not all that interested in yet another new Star Trek series. I did not like Star Trek Discovery and bringing back Picard isn't enough to make me want to watch another show from the current runners of Trek. I do like Mike's idea though, an ensemble cast on an old Galaxy class ship going on weird adventures would be fun. Don't focus solely on Picard, he's not very interesting.

Star Trek: Galaxy

DOOM Eternal

We got our first look at gameplay in DOOM Eternal at QuakeCon 2018. It looks awesome. It looks like iD is building on the formula that made DOOM 2016 so much fun to play and making it even more badass. New weapons, enemies, powers, and melee weapons, it's a good time to be the Doom Slayer. I can't wait to play it.

First Man Trailer

The trailer for the movie First Man recently released and it looks great. Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, and the movie follows the events surrounding the first manned mission to the moon.



It's been a while since we've had a good true story space movie. The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 are two of my favourite movies, I hope First Man can join them. Ryan Gosling is great, he nailed it in Blade Runner 2049, and he looks perfect here. I can't wait.

How to save Star Wars.

Scientist man has a plan to save Star Wars and It just might work. Are you listening Disney?

He's back! Scientist Man is hired to help save Star Wars™. He uses logic, economics, marketing and math in order to come up with an idea so radical that it just might save the soon-to-be bankrupt franchise.

In all seriousness though, there's a lot of problems with the way Disney Lucasfilm is handling Star Wars. Can Star Wars even be saved at this point?

Death Stranding

Death Stranding

Death Stranding looks neat and very weird. I have no idea what's going on in these trailers but I know I want to play this game. Hideo Kojima makes good stuff.