Future Man (Season 3)

I recently received news that an app I like, Job Spotter, is shutting down, likely permanently.  It was the one app that I had made the most money with.  I was even looking forward to using it once we could all go back out again.  Alas, it’s not to be.  I’ll get over it, of course.  There will be other apps I can use to get a little extra money.  I’ve even had this happen when Epinions shut down.

It’s sort of the same with finding out that a TV show you like won’t be coming back.  You feel that the show could have gone on for years.  Sometimes, it’s the right call.  It’s better to go out on top,

When I heard that this would be the last season of Future Man, it wasn’t that much of a shock.  Each season, I had to wonder what they’d be doing for the next set of episodes.  The show is known for having some wild humor.

The first season dealt with saving the future of humanity from biotics.  Josh Futturman became the savior of humanity by being the first to beat a video game.  Wolf and Tiger came from the future to enlist him, which he reluctantly agreed to.

In the second season, it became clear that the problems were a bit bigger.  Biotics still existed.  It was a whole new timeline, yet little had changed.  It was eventually discovered that messing with time travel that many times created a lot of timelines with a lot of problems.

The third season picks up where the second season left off.  Josh, Tiger and Wolf are still held prisoner by Susan in the year 3491.  For crimes against time, they’re sentenced to the DieCathalon, where they’ll fight all sorts of creatures.  Josh actually manages to escape, leading the trio on a whole new adventure.

The third season isn’t as reliant on cultural references as the first two seasons.  It’s also shorter.  (There are 8 episodes instead of 13.)  There are really three main acts.  First is Josh leading the escape from the future.  The second is the trio running through time and being caught for introducing an anachronism.  Finally, Susan offers them freedom in exchange for leading him to Haven.

Haven is what it all comes down to.  It’s a place outside of time and space where many historical figures and celebrities exist.  Gandhi and Jesus are there, as well as Picasso and Marilyn Monroe.  To make matters worse, time is collapsing in on itself.  If something isn’t done, all timelines will be sucked into Haven.

This puts the trio on the offensive rather than the defensive.  The show manages to pull this off without really changing the dynamic of the characters.  It’s exactly the kind of ending that the show deserves.  Everything is resolved.  We even get to see what happens to them.

I suppose a fourth season or a spinoff series is possible.  While the vortex responsible for Haven and time travel was destroyed, there’s no reason it couldn’t be recreated.  We could also have a show with just Wolf or Josh, showing their exploits after the show ended.  Susan was even shown trying to drive a bus.  We could have something with Susan and his family roaming the country.  (Susan is a man’s name in the far future.)

Then again, maybe it’s best to leave it alone.  The show is great as is.  There’s plenty of crude humor to go around without being offensive.  Each character comes to a level of awareness necessary to complete their respective story arc.  I think to have a fourth season of Future Man would be a bad call.  It would be better to do something with all or mostly new characters, even if it’s set in the same reality.

That being said, the show’s not going to be for everyone.  By this point, if you’ve seen the first two seasons, you probably have already finished the third season.  If you haven’t seen the first two seasons, what are you waiting for?

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The Twilight Zone (2019) -- Season 1 Episode 10 (Blurryman)

There’s a certain dilemma with reboots and remakes.  If you stick too close to the original, there’s no real point.  You’re not adding anything.  If you try to make it different, you risk straying too far from the original vision.  It becomes a remake in name only.  It’s difficult to find a balance where you’re truly continuing the legacy.

I suspect the new incarnation of The Twilight Zone has been trying to find its footing.  At least one is a remake of an original episode and seems to face that dilemma.  Overall, though, it would seem that some of the episodes are really trying to pay homage to Rod Serling’s vision.

Blurryman is sort of a metafictional take on an episode.  It starts off looking like a regular episode, but it’s not.  Midway through the opening narration, Jordan Peele seems to break character and we realize the episode is about making a Twilight Zone episode.

At the center of this is Sophie Gelson, the false episode’s writer.  Jordan Peele complains that her opening narration isn’t good enough.  So, there’s a rewrite and some cue cards that don’t hold what she actually wrote.

Plus, some footage shows a blurry man that no one noticed.  Each episode seems to have at least once.  (The footage shown is from The Comedian.  I checked and there is actually a person there, although not as blurry.)  The cue cards are written off as a prank.  The footage really isn’t anyone’s fault.  There are several people that should have noticed and the script writer isn’t really one of them.

Blurryman lays on the fright as Sophie descends into horror that occasionally showed up in the classic series.  She finds herself on an empty lot, being chased by Blurryman.  When she finds other people, no one notices her, nor does anyone react to her pursuer.

The ending could be taken one of two ways.  It could be seen as somewhat cheesy and a blatant attempt to appeal to fans of the original series.  Instead, I’d like to think that it’s a great way to acknowledge the original series and maybe try to bring us back to that.  (Maybe the episode’s ending is a little corny, but I like it.)

I can forgive a lot during a show’s first season.  I realize that this is basically a new production.  While it would appear to have influences from earlier incarnations, there will be missteps.  Maybe the self-referential nature doesn’t work all the time here, but I do get the sense that they’re trying.

As Sophie points out, why does it have to be art or entertainment?  Likewise, why does it have to be true to the original series or something new?  It’s difficult enough to find a balance.  It’s even more difficult to find something everyone will like.  Sophie wondered what The Twilight Zone was as a child.  Was it a literal place or was it a part of our imagination?  I think a lot of us have wondered the same thing from time to time.

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The Lion King (2019)

There was a line, delivered in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  I don’t know that it was meant to be important, but it stood out for me.  As said by the Federation President, “Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing.”  It could have been an insignificant part of a monologue, most of which we wouldn‘t get to hear.  Either way, there have been a few times in my life that have illustrated it perfectly.  The remake of The Lion King is one such example.

The 1994 version was an animated classic.  It was about a young lion, Simba, who watched his father die.  In reality, it was his uncle’s fault.  However, this evil Uncle, Scar, convinced Simba that Mufasa’s death was really the young boy’s fault, thus leading Simba to exile himself.  In so doing, he meets Pumbaa and Timon, a warthog and meerkat, respectively.  As an adult, an old friend, Nala, discovers that Simba is still alive.  She convinces Simba to return and overthrow Scar, who has taken over the throne.  Thus, The Circle of Life is complete.

This movie follows the same basic premise.  Many of the songs and lines are present in both movies, as are all of the main characters.  It’s a spectacle, to be sure.  I left the theater entertained, but I was asking one question:  Why was a remake necessary?   The Lion King was a great movie that will be remembered by many as such.  There’s no reason to do this other than to show off the CGI.  You could have done that with any movie.  You don’t need to remake a classic.

This isn’t to say it’s a total waste.  John Oliver stood out for me as Zazu.  (Between this and Wonder Park, Oliver seems to do well with voice work.)  It was also probably a given that James Earl Jones would return as Mufasa.  There were also bits of the animation that seemed to work well.  This doesn’t counter the fact that many of the other elements didn’t seem better than the original.  Scar, on the whole, was less of a villain to me than in the original.  He just didn’t seem as menacing.  Much of this had to do with the animation and isn’t meant to say Chiwetel Ejiofor did anything wrong.  After all, he does have Jeremy Irons to live up to, which isn‘t easy, given the role.

To me, this is the big problem.  The Lion King is enough of a legend that people who have seen both versions will constantly compare the two.  It’s almost impossible for this version to exceed that expectation.  Even if it were to hit every mark perfectly, it’s still not the original.  Simba truly does have a big paw print to fill.

 

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Long Shot (2019)

I noticed that I’ve been seeing a lot of animated films recently.  I thought maybe it was time for a change of pace.  I’m not saying that these movies were bad.  Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Missing Link were both pretty solid, in fact.  It’s just that maybe I should see something that was actually intended for someone my age.

Enter Long Shot.

The title works on several levels.  First, you have Charlotte Field, who’s working as secretary of state.  She’s considering a run for president, but knows that it would be an uphill battle at best.  She hasn’t even told anyone.  There’s also Fred Flarsky, who works for an independent news Web site.  That is, until right-wing dirt bag Parker Wembley buys it.  So, Flarsky quits in protest.

As you might expect from such a movie, Charlotte and Fred end up at the same party.  Funny thing is that Charlotte used to baby sit Fred.  He even had an adolescent crush on her.  Given his work history, Charlotte hires Fred as a speechwriter.  Hilarity and romance both ensue.

I knew going into the movie that there would be at least some crude humor.  It wasn’t as bad as I expected, honestly.  It’s still not a movie for children, but there was only one scene that would have been awkward watching with my parents.

I do sense a bit of wish fulfillment here.  Who hasn’t had an adolescent crush they wanted to hook up with?  She’s way out of his league and everyone knows it, but it happens anyway.  There’s also a female presidential candidate that survives a scandal that would have brought down a male contender.  (Perhaps the biggest fantasy of all is a horrible president that wants to limit himself to one term, even if it is for the wrong reason.)

This isn’t a complicated movie.  Both main characters are likable people.  Fred tends to be inflexible on certain issues while Charlotte needs to take a firmer stance.  Much of the humor tends to be out there, like Fred getting half of a swastika tattoo.  I wouldn’t say that it’s played for shock value, but it is there.  I think the next movie I watch might be animated, just for balance.

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Future Man (Season 1)

If you watch enough time-travel movies, there are certain things that would be good, like stopping Hitler before he becomes the leader of Germany.  If any of us invented a time machine, that’s probably the first thing we’d look in to.  The problem is that there’s no promise that this would be effective.  There were a lot of other factors at play, so there’s no guarantee that someone much worse wouldn’t have come along and done the same thing.

Such is the problem that Wolf and Tiger have.  They live in a world where genetically modified people known as biotics rule.  Regular humans have no hope except with time travel.  They’ve traced the Biotics’ origin to Doctor Elias Kronish,  All they need is a savior.

What does it take to become a savior?  That’s what Josh “Future Man” Futturman finds out when he beats Biotic Wars, a game that no one else has beaten.  Wolf and Tiger show up in his room to recruit Josh into their war.  You see, in their time, warriors play video games for training.  What they don’t realize is that Josh thought it was just a game.  Yes, in a giant nod to The Last Starfighter, they used a video game as a recruitment tool.

The first episode should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.  There are plenty of references to major time-travel movies, like Terminator and Back to the Future.  There are all manner of sexual situations, like Tiger and Wolf having sex to relieve tension.  This is not a TV series you want to watch with your children.  Or your parents, for that matter.

The series has 13 half-hour episodes, meaning that it’s very easy to binge watch.  I was worried that the series might drag, as several other series have.  This isn’t a problem.  In fact, the series was originally developed as a movie.  It was eventually realized that they needed more time to tell the whole story.

Part of this is that they have several setbacks.  Josh is insistent on not killing Kronish whereas Tiger and Wolf would simply kill him as a baby.  Many of Josh’s attempts result in either failure or making the situation worse. I kind of wonder why Tiger and Wolf needed Josh in the first place, since it should be relatively easy to get that information.  It’s pure chance that Josh works at Kronish’s research facility.

It seems like much of the plot revolves around paying homage to various tropes of the genre.  In terms of time travel, very little is original.  Josh points out that killing Kronish at an early age is the central plot of the first Terminator movie.  There is also an episode that loosely resembles Back to the Future.  This isn’t to say that it’s not entertaining.  Wolf has an instant attraction to pickles and eventually takes up cooking, which leads to an interesting episode.

The series is at least maybe a little more realistic if that can be a thing with science fiction.  The amount of culture shock experienced by Tiger and Wolf is believable.  I also think most people in Josh’s situation would also teeter between wanting to go on an adventure and not waning to screw things up royally.

It did end up being a fun series.  (Yes, I know I’m a few months late in reviewing it.)  I don’t want to ruin the ending, but it looks like there will be a second 13-episode season.  I’ll be looking forward to it.


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Sausage Party (2016)

The first time I heard the term ‘sausage party’ was a Law & Order episode.  A character was using it to refer to a party with an undesirably high ratio of men to women.  (It may take you a moment to get that.  I’ll wait.)  I don’t recall having heard the term much since then.  That’s why, when I came across Sausage Party, I was curious.  I had to wonder how far the writers had gone with the concept.  It looks like they went all out.

The self-aware food items at Shopwell’s grocery store all want to go to The Great Beyond.  A sausage named Frank has plans to unite with Brenda, a bun, in the next life, if only he can stay fresh long enough.  They revere customers as gods.  The gods have the power to take produce to a wonderful life where they’ll be treated well.  They have only a honey mustard squeeze bottle to tell them otherwise.  So convinced is the honey mustard that he commits suicide, imploring Frank to seek out a bottle of Firewater as his last act.

Brenda and Frank are accidentally ejected from their respective packages.  A douche is damaged, meaning he‘ll never be useful.  Brenda and Frank set out an adventure around the grocery store with Douche as the main antagonist.  The sausage and bun find that most of the other food items tend to behave like the stereotypes of their respective countries of origin.  (A German product wants to kill all the Juice, for instance.)  Frank and Brenda meet up with Sammy Bagel, Jr., who sounds like Woody Allen and speaks of his people being displaced.  There’s also a lavash called, I believe, Lavash.  He’s distinctly Arab and doesn’t do much to hide his contempt for Sammy.  (However, both Lavash and Sammy are friends with the hummus.)  Rounding out the party is Teresa del Taco, who is a lesbian.

Frank eventually meets The Immortals, who are all nonperishable foods.  They invented the story of The Great Beyond to keep the other food from freaking out.  The Immortals tell Frank to go to the frozen section to find proof, which Frank eventually has to do alone.  It takes some time and some help, but Frank is able to get the other groceries to revolt against the humans.

The movie might be more appropriately titled Gods and Generalizations.  When you’re trying to play on that many stereotypes, it’s easy to have an epic misfire.  The same goes for the movie’s religious references.  The Great Beyond is little more than a way of placating the population of the grocery store.  I was wondering if a review would even be appropriate.  What would you expect from a movie called Sausage Party, anyway?  This is meant more as a warning to people who want some sort of confirmation.

I mean, you have an literal douche named Douche acting like a figurative douche.  He juices up by basically going down on a juice box.  The female characters don’t seem to hold back on the sex appeal, such as it is.  Oh, and if you were put off by the opening barrage of language, you are not going to want to sit through the final scene with your parents and/or children.  I’m a little hesitant to embed the red-band trailer here due to restrictions by AdSense, but you can easily find it by searching for “Sausage Party Red Band Trailer”.

Most people know what their tolerance is for offensive humor.  This movie will probably push that limit.  I was entertained, but I tend to have a somewhat high tolerance.  It was only the last scene that made me at all uncomfortable.  A few of the other references were unsettling.  I doubt very much that you will be seeing on a broadcast network.  Basic cable, maybe late at night.  This was not intended to be family friendly.  Do not take your children (or parents) to see this movie.

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Paul (2011)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Alien movies are nothing new.  You have E.T., Starman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and all sorts of other titles.  I had wanted to see this one in theaters, but not having much money kept me waiting until it came out on DVD.  Part of the appeal was that it had Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Graeme Willy and Clive Gollings.  They're friends that have come from Great Britain to the United States to attend Comic-Con.  Afterwards, they decide to take an RV to various paranormal/alien sites such as The Black Mailbox.

Their journey is cut short by Paul, an alien on the run from a secret government facility.  (Paul is voiced by Seth Rogen, in case you can’t quite place it.)  Paul has been giving the United States Government all sorts of information, contributing to everything from technology to movies.  Since Paul has given up every bit of useful information, the only thing left to do is harvest stem cells for biological research.

Shortly into their journey, they meet Ruth, a very religious woman that can’t accept the existence of aliens, even after meeting Paul.  Paul, Graeme and Clive are forced to take Ruth with them as they continue to run.  Because of this, they not only have federal agents, but Ruth’s fundamentalist father, Moses, after them.  Eventually, Paul, Graeme, Clive and Ruth make it to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, a reference to the aforementioned Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  This is where Paul intends to meet his rescue ship.  I don’t want to give away the ending, as it’s probably best not to know.

If this isn’t your first alien movie, you should catch a few references like Devil’s Tower.  There are all sorts of in jokes and mentions.  I even missed one or two.  Because of this, the movie isn’t necessarily all that original.  I’m not say that this is wrong.  It’s probably one of the few cases where they can get away with it.  Even if you don’t get the references, you can still usually laugh at the jokes. Some of the humor is crude, high-school stuff.  Anal probes are mentioned a few times and Paul does like to use drugs.  There are maybe one or two scenes that wouldn’t be appropriate for small children, but nothing that would scar anyone for life.

This is the third movie I’ve seen staring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  You may remember them from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  If you liked those movies, you’ll probably like this one, although I’d say that this one is the most different of the three.  I’m not saying that it’s better or worse.  It just has a slightly different feel, probably owing to the sci-fi theme.

I’d definitely recommend seeing it, even if you’re not a big sci-fi fan.  Like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the dead, much of the movie works because it’s not being shoved down your throat.  It just works.  There were maybe one or two jokes that were seemed a little random.  (I spent the whole movie wondering what kind of last name Zoil was.)  Either way, it’s definitely worth watching. 

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