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Headsup: Corruption, Cartoons, and a Whole Lotta History

5 days ago

“[In Ray Donovan: Season Six,] we find Ray (Liev Schreiber) rebuilding his life both personally and professionally in New York City. After being rescued from a plummet into the East River, his savior, a cop named Mac (Domenick Lombardozzi), brings Ray into the fraternity that is the Staten Island Police Department. While exploring this new world of brotherhood and corruption, Ray finds himself once again working for media mogul Sam Winslow (Susan Sarandon). Sam has teamed up with New York City mayoral candidate Anita Novak (Lola Glaudini), a partnership that puts Ray at odds with his new friends out in Staten Island.” — from CBS

Ray Donovan: Season Six is now out on DVD, which includes all twelve episodes of the sixth season as well as two featurettes (“Ray Donovan: Inside New York City” and “Rise, Rebuild, Reclamation”). You can also get the season digitally on both Amazon and iTunes for $29.99, but unless you seriously need to save some space, it basically means spending $5 more for the same (or less) content since the DVD is only $24.99 on Amazon.

Doomsday Hound Russian Imperial Stout – Review

4 weeks ago

Widge

Reviews

A Russian imperial stout. A picture of a dark hellhound on the can. The name “Doomsday Hound.” It’s obvious New Realm had targeted this beer right at me. Reading these signs I took it upon myself to pick up the gauntlet they had thrown down and drink it. I…well, that metaphor just went right to hell, so never mind.

You’ve got a 9.5% ABV here and when you open it, the aroma at first makes it seems like it’s one of those UberStouts. You know the type: “I am a STOUT and I will beat you to DEATH with my UTTER STOUTNESS.” There can be too much of a good thing and these days I find that some stouts are trying to go for the extreme sport drinkers or…something. I guess those Ultra-Stouts are trying to appeal to drinkers who have destroyed their tastebuds with over-hoppyness. So I was prepared for this thing to try and punch me in the earhole.

Rodents of Unusual Size (2017) – Movie Review

2 months ago

Widge

Reviews

Produced & Directed by Quinn Costello, Jeff Metzler & Jeff Springer
Narrated by Wendell Pierce

So I’m going to admit something to you. If you’ve been hanging around this site for any length of time, though, it’s not exactly a shock revelation. I have a fondness for When Animals Attack films. I especially enjoy the When Giant Animals Attack sub-genre. If a week goes by where I can’t make a Food of the Gods reference, I feel like something’s spiritually wrong. Night of the Lepus is a staple of annual Halloween viewing. So when I heard there was a film about giant rodents eating Louisiana, I expected it to be ATOMIC giant rodents or stop-motion giant rodents or…something. But it was a documentary. Oh yes.

Enter…the nutria. I know it sounds like I’m about to launch into a sales pitch for a new smoothie diet mix, but no…nutria are basically what would happen if naked mole rats got sick and tired of being picked on, so they overdosed on Rogaine and steroids. These things are as big as beavers and have orange teeth. See? Orange teeth. That’s weird. They should be atomic, glowing orange teeth but no, it’s something apparently normal having to do with the enamel.

I won’t rehash the story of how the nutria came to Louisiana, because that’s part of the docu Rodents of Unusual Size. And the animated sequence towards the beginning in which Wendell Pierce (Treme, Jack Ryan) tells you the story does a much better job than I could. Suffice it to say the nutria were brought in with the best of intentions, they got loose, they were fruitful and multiplied, and now they eat vegetation which helps hold the ground together. And with the ground compromised, it has a tendency to just…wash away.

Headsup: World War II, the Wild West, and High School

2 months ago

Thespia

Headsup

“[In The Game,] it may seem glamorous being the wife or girlfriend of a pro-football player, but Melanie Barnett (Tia Mowry-Hardrict) quickly learns the hard truth. After her boyfriend, Derwin Davis (Pooch Hall, “Ray Donovan”), gets drafted as the new third-string wide receiver for the San Diego Sabers, Melanie discovers her role is much more than supporting her beau from the sidelines. She must pick up a playbook of her own and learn the power plays that NFL wives use to get their men the best agents, managers, charity opportunities, endorsements and merchandising deals.” — from CBS

The Game: The Complete Series is now available and features all 141 episodes from all nine seasons of the show. Bonus features (which for some reason are only on Seasons 1, 4, 5, and 6) include interviews, highlight reels, deleted scenes, gag reels, and a spin-off episode from Girlfriends: The Game. The Game: The Complete Series is now available on DVD on Amazon for $47.79 (you can also find the individual seasons there on DVD, but if you want more than two or three on the shelf, getting the set is by far the better option cost-wise).

This Just In: Invasion Info, Demonic Recipes, & Happy Dogs That Could Kick Your Ass

3 months ago

Widge

Headsup

It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by both (as of this writing, there have been only two) World Wars. Simply because about six months or so, I learn some new insane fact about the conflicts. Nothing so far has beaten aircraft carrier submarines, though. So when I saw the Kickstarter for The Neptune Monograph Project, I leapt on it. This is the document that was used for D-Day planning and was the highest level of Top Secret (BIGOT) they had (except for Double Secret BIGOT). The end result is badass and the sort of thing you can data geek out on for weeks. There are descriptions of German fortifications. There are charts about tides and info on the type of ground they’re going to hit when they arrive. There’s a level of info that…well, I have no idea how they pulled together this much stuff. I couldn’t do it today with Google Fu. So basically it’s an important WWII document that is now fully restored for posterity and uses its blank pages to provide historical context. If you really want to deep dive on the subject, you can’t get much deeper than this. If you need one for yourself, there’s still a couple left being sold over at Amazon.

The Music of 2018 in Review

3 months ago

Widge

Music

If you’re reading this, then it’s official: you’ve survived 2018. Congratulations. Or you’re in the far flung future and somehow a copy of this site is extant despite the atomic wars, the invasion of mutant hamsters, and the revelation that saliva causes stomach cancer. So you were wise enough not to be born yet when 2018 happened, and thus I say also to you: congratulations.

One of the things we do around here while passing the time awaiting the heat death of the universe is to attempt to keep up with the release of new music. It’s impossible. I tried to listen to as much music from a single year a few years back and it damn near killed me. If anybody comes close to being able to sift through everything, that would have to be Need Coffee Music Ministers, Tuffley and Rob. And keeping with tradition, they have published their best-of lists for the year that was. You can find them on Spotify (links below). Also keeping with tradition, I tried to keep up with them and failed with spectacular grace for someone of my size. So I have my own list, heavily dependent on the other two to remind me of stuff I forgot (like Tuffley’s list reminded me that we had new (!) Coltrane, and Rob’s list making me aware of the existence of Durand Jones).

Wayhomer Review #190: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

3 months ago

Widge

Reviews, Wayhomers

It’s Episode #190 for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, in which our protagonist is blown away not only by badass animation and a kickass story, but also by the fact Spider-Ham is in a feature film.
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“To Me, My X-Men”: Thoughts on Season 2 of The Gifted

3 months ago

Wolven

Stimuli

So I’ve been watching The Gifted since it started, because I had hopes for a well-done live action X-Men series, especially one that tried to get out from under the baggage of the more-established well-known characters to try to play around in the periphery of the universe. Thing of it is, there’s something a bit…off about what’s happening here, and I want to try to put words around it, so stick with me a second.

The X-Men mythos was explicitly about being a fictionalized allegorical way to read the struggle for Civil Rights in the 1950s and ’60s. In the time since, that’s been expanded to encompass LGBTQIA struggles and more, but in any event it started as a way to get people to sympathize if not empathize with marginalized people’s struggles to be seen and understood as people. As such, while the tagline was always “to protect a world that hates and fears them,” at the end of the day, the X-Men were triumphant, the mutants were right, and the question was only one of tactics and extremes to which it was “right” to go, to deal with that struggle. Anti-mutant perspectives, though possibly held by people whose lives had been disrupted or even destroyed by mutants, were always the wrong side.

Your Weekend Justice #254: Shooting is Not Meeting

4 months ago

Widge

Podcasts, Weekend Justice

It’s Weekend Justice: the Internet’s #1 audio trainwreck. This episode is from the archives: recorded in May 2016.

Agenda:

Why is Leigh ordering around the guy from the BBC?

Jon puts out the lights

Lucifer is fun, no matter what wacky moms say

The aging of Teenlet

Leigh, seeking justice

Fear the Walking Dead, getting wet

Walking Dead, smacking its audience

Doctor Denise gets a harem

Fun with Civil War

Agents of SHIELD

In defense of Fitz & Simmons

What turned Howard Stark

Black Panther, stealing Civil War

Looking forward to Doctor Strange

Realism in the MCU, thrown into space

Civil War vs. Spectre?

The new Entertainment Weekly

An upside to Gods of Egypt?

Why the Civil War comic is crap

Leigh’s meetings are weird

Strippers and Demons in a Bottle

Hopes for SHIELD

Shows we need on Netflix

Things not to do in your sleep

Zootopia

Sorting out Marvel rights (good luck)

The legendary G.I. Joe aircraft carrier

Christmas spoilers

Exploring the EA Vault

Sharpening your pinball skills

Where Elvira beats Game of Thrones

It’s okay to get a house

Decadent toothpaste

Hallucinating flavors

Leigh vs. Kidlet on Judge John Hodgman

Headsup: The Hunt for the Truth

4 months ago

Thespia

Headsup

Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment requests we note that it provided a free copy of “Westworld Season Two: The Door”. The opinions I share are my own.

“Adapted from The New York Times bestselling author James Patterson’s novel, “Murder Games,” Instinct follows former CIA operative Dr. Dylan Reinhart (Cumming) as he is lured back to his old life when the NYPD seeks his help to stop a serial killer. A notably gifted author and university professor living a quiet life teaching psychopathic behavior, Dylan’s path takes a turn when he meets tenacious NYPD detective Lizzie Needham (Novakovic). Through persistence, Lizzie convinces Dylan to come out of retirement and help catch the serial killer who is using his first book as a tutorial for murder. Helping them catch the killer is Julian Cousins (Naveen Andrews, “Lost”), Dylan’s invaluable CIA partner who rivals him in brilliance and wit, and can get top-secret dirt on anyone, anywhere, anytime. Lizzie’s boss, Lt. Jasmine Gooden (Sharon Leal, Dreamgirls), is glad to see her best detective finally agree to work with someone on a case, since Lizzie has refused every partner following a tragic event one year ago….Though Dylan and Lizzie initially clash, they realize they will make an ideal team if they both trust their instincts when it comes to catching a killer. ” – from CBS

Instinct: Season One is now available on DVD and includes all thirteen episodes of the show’s debut season. Series-specific bonus content is limited to a gag reel and some deleted and extended scenes, although the DVD also includes pilot episodes for other CBS series including Bull, The Good Fight, and SEAL Team. You can snag the DVD for $23.02 on Amazon, although (unless you’re super excited about the pilot episodes of the other shows), it’s probably a better deal dollars-wise to go the digital route and get the season on Amazon or on iTunes (both priced at $14.99) for a 35% savings over the hard copy.