What We've Been Watching (00:00:00 - 00:44:03)
• Lucifer TV series: Based on the masterpiece comic series by Mike Carrey, it was spawned after Neil Gaiman's Sandman run where Lucifer Morningstar quits being the King of Hell.
The comic series was a fantastic look at Lucifer away from Hell and what his true intentions were, are and will be. It is also littered with wonderful and wonderfully complex characters such as Mazikeen. Herein lies he first truly grotesque alteration to the show... They cast a beautiful woman in the role of Mazikeen and the first time you meet her, she's apparently receiving oral sex. This is totally at odds to her character in the comics where she is literally facially deformed (she wears a half-mask) but she is confident and powerful. She is then "fixed" and given a beautiful face which she completely hates, considers herself ugly from then on and it's a huge personal issue for her to understand and overcome. So casting a beautiful woman without the mask is rubbish!
I only got to watch the first episode, but this show has a serious up-hill struggle to win me over. I'll give it two more episodes and see how it progresses.
• X Files Season 10: What is going on with this new season?! The pilot worked generally rather well at re-introducting X Files and updating the concept for a more cynical era. Then episode 2 went into a more Fringe-esque area with genetic manipulation. Ok but lacking the joy of Fringe or the engagement of the characters. Then came episode 3 (as it so often does) and with it an entirely comical episode featuring Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords. Milder has a crisis of "faith" and Scully seemingly steals a dog. Weirdness. Sticking with the 3-episode rule... I don't know if I will go back to finish the season.
• Damien TV series: a continuation story from The Omen movies. So far there's only the pilot episode and it's not great. But at the same time, I am still curious about how it will progress. Bradley James is a charming and likeable actor, so it's going to be interesting to see him either embrace The Beast or fight against it as Damien. One of the biggest challenges I had with the first episode was that it was very heavy handed in its approach to atmosphere-building and any sense of dread. Loud, deep moaning Latin "song" being used to build fear, dread and suspense may have worked for the original movies, but it seems old and cheap now. Likewise, there was a little CGI usage, but they were clearly working on a budget and it looks rather tacky and student-project. Basically I feel that the first episode was poorly handled and executed but the pure concept of the show has me intrigued.
A sequel series to a dated gothic shocker franchise.
• The Division - Xbox One: Ubisoft have released a MMORPG-like game in The Division that seems to be in a similar vein to Destiny and WoW, but with some (not all) of the pitfalls that plagued those games early on, overcome. Set in New York after a deadly new form of the Small Pox virus has ravaged the land. You are a Division agent activated to assist in reclaiming NY from looters, gangs and general no-gooders. But with a heavy emphasis on online play. I'm not an online multi-player gamer by any stretch of the imagination. But Ubisoft continually promoting that The Division could be played solo, I jumped in straight away. I'm surprised by how intensely I want to sample the PvP Dark Zone of this game. But I have decided to run through as much of the solo game as possible before going into the Dark Zone.
• Suits: It's gets worse. People comparing it to Mad Men are totally wrong. The characters are kind of interesting but they're not really doing anything exciting or original moving onwards. A bit paint by numbers.
• 11:22:63: completely lost control of the story arc in the book. James Franco is hugely entertaining and the time travel is interesting. It's only ok.
• 10 Cloverfield Lane: anthology of sorts to Cloverfield. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman star in a very psychological thriller. Mary is a fantastic performance but Goodman is the show-stealer. A chilling and compelling story. The end is perhaps the weakest part but it is totally worth your money.
We also have a discussion about the Civil War trailer that dropped this week.
Terrible Movie Challenge Review: (00:44:04 - 01:09:18)
"You mean I'm never gonna live this movie down?!"
Travis watched one of the very worst Superhero movies to even be created... Shaquille O'Neil in Steel. For the uninitiated, Steel is a DC comics superhero who was so inspired by Superman that he strove to be the very best Man he could.
Meanwhile, the next Terrible movie to watch is Disaster Movie (2008) And thanks to Portland losing, Georgehas to watch it for next week.
We are also changing how we do the Terrible Movie Challenge. We're gonna reveal the Terrible Movie and then play to see who will have to watch it. The first Terrible Movie in the new set up will be playing for Dragonball Evolution.
Topic of Discussion: (01:09:19 - 01:41:15)
Hollywood Superstars. Do we still need them? That's the question. The answer is, as is normal with the G&T Podcast, meandering and not easily explained.