Holiday Gift Guide: Movies & TV

Vance: For the Cinephile in your life

Filmstruck (www.filmstruck.com)

Imagine you're sitting at home some night. Maybe it's cold out, or hot out, or raining. The video store's closed, and has been since 2007, but you definitely have a WiFi connection and don't feel like binge-watching that must-see show that everybody's always making you feel guilty about not seeing. What you really want to do is watch a silent comedy. Or a French movie about high society, or about low society, or a future, animated society. Or something Orson Welles made. Or, hell, just pretty much anything in black-and-white. That's where Filmstruck comes in. A partnership with Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection, Filmstruck has a rotating crop of classic and contemporary films that include curated lists grouped around directors (such as Early Bogdanovich, or Agnes Varda, or Auteurs in Space), or regions (such as Films of the Diaspora, or Life in Tel Aviv, or Films of the French Occupation), or themes (about organized labor, or punk, or poverty), as well as your regular browse functions that allow you to search library titles. Not everything is highbrow fare, though. They recently featured the films of Mario Bava and Val Lewton, recently did a series on Roger Corman (our interview), and are still streaming one of my favorite kaiju trainwrecks, The X from Outer Space (review). It's kind of a cinephile's playground, and costs less than Hulu's ad-free service. 

Dean: For the binge-watcher in your life

I think I watched more TV this year than I have in any before, so I have a few suggestions:

Westworld is probably the best show I have ever seen. I adore it start to finish, and I know (for once) I'm not alone in that assessment. In an era of binge-watching simply because we can, Westworld demands it, every episode making you scream for the next one - and when it's all done, you have to go back and watch it again. And again. ($39.99, Amazon).

American Gods is nearly as good, and we're not going to talk about the fact that season one is shaping up to be a mess with the showrunners leaving. But season one is great! Fans of scifi/fantasy/surrealism will adore this. ($24.96, Amazon)

Game of Thrones: I AM, however, fairly alone in not liking Game of Thrones. But lots of people do, and buying people what they like is what gifts are about, right? And if you're going to get them this, you may as well go all out and get the Night King (that's his name, right? Or is that WoW?) bust.  ($149.99, Amazon)


Brian: Get Out - Jordan Peele (director)

Despite what the Golden Globes may classify it as, Get Out is not a comedy. It's a brilliant horror movie that achieves more tension and terror with human beings than with gallons of blood and masked psychopaths. The premise is simple: Chris Washington is a black man who is going to meet his white girlfriend's parents for the first time. It's a movie designed to make you feel uncomfortable, and it does so with incredible success and wit. Though it has a few very good laughs in it, the point isn't to entertain you so much as make you feel what Chris feels, and he doesn't have a fun time.

The G: Robocop (Criterion Edition)

Many action films in the '80s simultaneously embodied and critiqued Reagan-era notions of macho nationalism and money-makes-right, but none quite as well as Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece of action cinema. You can watch it as a straight-forward action flick about a good job with robotic powers cleaning up a dirty city, or you can watch it as a satirical take on privatized security and corporate greed. Because it's both! And in the era of Blackwater, private prisons and mass automation, Robocop is as relevant as ever. Plus Criterion editions come with all sorts of goodies.


Sean: Gintama: the live-action version

Gintama continues to be an amazing parody of all things anime/history/etc., and the usual well-placed fears about live-action adaptations of this sort of brilliance were, I am happy to report, actually misplaced in this case! So for the lovers of quirky movies around you, take a chance on Gintama! But then again, even the best live-action version can't measure up to the original anime, so maybe just play it safe and get the animated Gintama film instead...


Limitless: the TV series

I know what you're thinking: why watch a TV series based on only a pretty good movie? I'll tell you why: because of the brilliant parody said series did of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, that's why! It was a shot-for-shot remake at times! So kill two birds with one stone: give the TV-phile an entertaining show and an adrenaline burst of nostalgia for the 80s!

This Ain't Your Daddy's Review: American Gods

This Ain't Your Daddy's Review

For someone who writes every spare moment he gets, sings (poorly), and plays music (slightly less poorly), and is that guy who breaks down every stupid detail of a movie, there are some forms of art I just don't get. I went to an art museum recently, which all those things I just listed are, and it had an ostensibly moving exhibit of portraiture. They were pictures, of people, but to spruce the joint up, they put little plaques with words next to them. Now, this is me, but one hundred times out of one hundred, if you put a picture and a set of words next to each other, I am taking the words.

Not that the pictures were bad. The person who took/painted/whatever them just thought they were way better than I did. To a person, the words said they were going to change the world with their portrait.

To date, this has not happened.

All of this is to say, I am frequently out in left field when it comes to art appreciation. So it is that I find the television adaption of American Gods quite refreshing. Not because it is the greatest show ever- it might be, who knows, and if I think it is, that means most of you hate it and vice versa- but I wanted to use this space to appreciate some of the details of it, details which make it a good piece of art, two episodes in.

Consider this your spoiler warning.

Narration sucks. The vast, vast majority of the time it is stupid, and redundant. So opening with it didn't exactly fill me with optimism, but that quickly passes. It gives way to something else, though, which is a tough thing to execute, namely, curiosity.

If you boil the first couple episodes down, the beats are... infrequent. But that's what happens when you have to set up a world. But what must be done is to keep interest up, and Gods does this in spades. It teases well, by virtue of Shadow Moon, who is just as - possibly more- lost as us. For every piece that is revealed, two questions seem to pop up, and e (at least, I) really want to know the answer.

My other complaint about a lot of things- Harry Potter, anything vampires or werewolves, etc- is the 'hidden world' motif, which is to say, some world that exists with ours and the story bends itself backwards to justify why these creatures are secret.

American Gods doesn't really have time for that. Two hours in, and, basically, it just doesn't address it. It doesn't ignore it, exactly, but it just presents it as this is the way it is. Note to writers: This is way better. Without going into the book, and letting the show speak for itself, I love this handling of it, because it feels immersive. We just get to go along for the ride without a convoluted explanation pulling us out of it.

Finally, for a show about gods and secret worlds, this show does a really good job of having human moments. Shadow, for a hunky slab of man with a limited number of tones and facial expressions, is incredibly sympathetic. As a character, his job is basically not to get in our way and give us emotions to identify with, and this is done very well. The moments- so far- I have been most invested in the show are moments that deal with his (past) life and revelations about it.

It's early yet, obviously, so this could all come apart, but details like this give me a lot of hope going forward. That casting, incidentally, is pretty spot on. Ian McShane is vastly underrated and completely disappears into this role. A few moments of weak CGI and the occasional dull spot, American Gods is shaping up to be an amazing series.

The Math:

[incomplete]

(Note: I focused purely on the TV series, if you would like a review of the book, Tia did that)

-DESR

Dean is the author of the 3024AD series of science fiction stories (which should be on YOUR summer reading list). You can read his other ramblings and musings on a variety of topics (mostly writing) on his blog. When not holed up in his office
tweeting obnoxiously writing, he can be found watching or playing sports, or in his natural habitat of a bookstore.

Nanoreviews [TV]: 2015-2016 Speculative TV Shows

I have been busy fulfilling my 2016 resolution to watch more TV. This task has been made incredibly easy by the plethora of great speculative shows that have hit the airwaves, not to mention all the different methods of viewing them. Having recently broken up with my cable service, I am finally experiencing the joy that is Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon video streaming in this golden age of television.

In the spirit of my resolution, I have vowed to be less prejudiced when it comes to selecting which shows to watch, but I still have some criteria.  Mainly, no romances or supernatural beings (which are usually romances anyway), no superheroes (I'm burnt out), and the show must stay consistently below incredibly on the cheese-o-meter (tiny surges are tolerable in small doses).

So, without further ado, here are some minute reviews of what I've been watching and what’s next on my list:

The Expanse (SyFy): Space Opera.

Though a slow starter, The Expanse quickly became one of my all time favorite TV shows. The politics, while complex, was surprisingly easy to follow, the set was magnificent, and the acting superb. The only character I didn’t really care for was Miller. Thomas Jane’s stereotypically suave but mildly corrupt cop routine seems out of place in this world. But pretty much every other character blew my socks off, most notably Dawes, Holden, Nagata, and my favorite, Amos Burton. I am so excited for Season 2. Can. Not. Wait. Score: 9/10

The Shannara Chronicles (MTV): Heroic Fantasy.

The cheese is, at times, strong with this one. For the record, I know nothing about these books, except that they are Lord of the Rings-ish and the show definitely reflects that sentiment. But MTV pulled out all the stops here. It is filmed in New Zealand so the scenery is beautiful, and the CG is pretty spot on. At it’s heart Shannara is a show about teenagers in a love triangle,
but it hits some high notes along the way. The show opens with one of the main female characters training for and secretly competing in an all-male warrior competition, which, of course, she becomes the first female to win. The show has some powerful female characters all around and the relationships between characters are surprisingly complex. For the record, I am absolutely obsessed with Eretria. She is no nonsense and can hold her own, often having to bail the others out. But through her tough exterior she is also selfless and caring. Score: 7/10

The Magicians (SyFy): Urban Fantasy.

Watching truly great book to TV adaptions like this (and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) makes me doubly realized how some have really dropped the ball (coughGameOfThrones). What truly amazed me about The Magicians was how it deviated so far from the books at times, but never truly lost the narrative. My TV buddy is a non-reader and in explaining the book to TV differences, I was always able to justify why the show did what it did which surprised me because I’m usually pretty bratty about that kind of stuff. Each character except Alice is nearly perfectly cast, but Hale Appleman as Eliot wins for most perfectly cast adaptation character ever.  I do have to put a disclaimer here though, as this nanoreview does not contain the final episode, which I am refusing to watch. I thought we might get away without the god awful rape scene but I read the finale recap and discovered that not only do they air the rape scene, but they chose to make the woman dote on the event (not in the book) and have it drive her further arc (also not in the book). They also seem to have disregarded Alice’s great sacrifice all together, removed Eliot's sexuality, and seemingly negated everything good I have said about them. So, I’m not watching it. Head, meet sand. All but the finale score: 8/10

X-Files (Fox): Science Fiction.

I loved every second of this reboot. It was funny and at times moving, but always incredibly self aware. It goes without saying that Anderson and Duchovny have more on-screen chemistry than should be possible, and it is as strong now as ever. The only thing I didn’t like was the William story line. I guess they had to at least bring it up but it was gut wrenching at times and never got resolved. And speaking of not resolving things, how about that finale?! I loved it actually, and while it may seem like a major cliff hanger, I found it oddly satisfying because everyone finally saw what Mulder has been saying all along. Score: 8/10



Not necessarily speculative, but still relevant:

Mr. Robot (USA): Drama.

Mic drop.

No really, I don’t know what else to say about this show. First, I am shocked and impressed that it aired on USA. Mr. Robot is testament to the true nature of this golden age of television, which is a cascade of high quality material without regard to network or viewing medium. When I try to tell people about Mr. Robot, the words that come out of my mouth sound hollow and dull in comparison. “It’s a show about hackers, and it makes hacktivism seem tangible, and its kind of like Anonymous” only scratches the surface. Saying too much will give it all away. So if you haven’t watched it, do so now, even if you have to pay for it (like I did), it's worth every penny. Score: 10/10

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (TBS): Satire.

I’ve only started watching Full Frontal. It’s a short, satirical topic show starring Daily Show alum Samantha Bee. Bee’s stage presence is slightly awkward at times, but the show is funny and the content is extremely relevant. Feminist and liberal in nature, Full Frontal is informative and entertaining. You can get a pretty good taste of what appears on the show from its Facebook page. Score: 7/10


What’s next:

Colony (USA): Science Fiction.

I am currently giving this one a try, but I’m not sure about it. The premise is intriguing, taking place in a dystopian near-future Los Angeles which is under military rule and encased within a giant wall. The presumption is that the invaders are aliens. The main characters are husband and wife and during the colonization they were separated from one of their children. But one partner is secretly a member of the rebellion and the other has openly been forced to work for the occupiers. I actually really hate the convention/trope where partners who are both main characters that we are supposed to like are hiding things from one another. Usually there is no believable justification for it, as is the case here, and it never works out well so I feel an uncomfortable anxiety whenever I encounter it. Overall, Colony has a heavy feel to it and I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. Score: too soon to tell

12 Monkeys (SyFy): Science Fiction.

I’ve only watched the first four episodes so far, but am surprisingly impressed. I’m normally not a fan of time travel stories but this one had me captivated from the start. It is intense and exciting and mysterious and I want more. Amanda Schull completely captivates me as Cassandra. I can’t wait to catch up and I hope it doesn’t get stale. Score: looking good so far

What I’m looking forward to:

Preacher (AMC): Comic Adaption.

All I know of Preacher is what I saw in the trailer and it looks amazing, but possibly too gory for my taste. I must admit that it makes me think of Nicholas D. Wolfwood which pulls at my nostalgia strings hard. 

American Gods (Starz): Urban Fantasy.

 We have some time to wait for this but I have a feeling it is going to be fantastic. The casting is impressive and even though I love the book, I haven’t ready any of the other supporting material so I think the show will be even more intriguing.




Librarians (TNT): Urban Fantasy.

Others are starting to pick up on the greatness that is The Librarians, something I have pronounced before. The show doesn't take itself too seriously but tackles some serious issues and has some seriously kickass female characters. Season 3 is on its way.

See something I've missed? Let me know what to watch next!

----
POSTED BY: Tia   up and coming TV junkie and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2014.

Microreview [book]: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

A modern classic that takes urban fantasy to a new level.

I am slowly making my way through all of the fantasy must reads. So far I’ve covered ASoIaF, LoTR, Gormenghast, and First Law, just to name a few. Once I finish the Malazan Book of the Fallen (only 1.5 books left!) I may take on WoT. Needless to say, I’ve had to narrow down my TBR list to include only speculative fiction. It now looks something like this:

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods was at the top of my fantasy must reads sub-list because I knew it was not just a fantasy must read, but a must read overall.

The story takes place in modern day America and follows the main character, Shadow Moon, as he is released from prison and enters the employ of one Mr. Wednesday, a mysterious, somewhat shady individual who seems to know way too much about Shadow’s past. Shadow is a good man. He is kind and sympathetic but not pathetic and you definitely wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. Employed as a bodyguard to Mr. Wednesday, Shadow travels all around the country while Wednesday tries to recruit a select group of individuals to his cause. And what a select group of individuals it is. The cast of characters in this book is phenomenal, but next to Shadow I think my favorite is Samantha. She’s a wise-talking hitch-hiking college student who can hold her own in any situation.

I am intentionally being very vague about the story line because I don’t want to ruin anything for you. It is rare to go into a book like this blind, but I did and it was fantastic. I will tell you though that American Gods is an extremely poignant commentary on American culture and refreshingly, it does not have a post-apocalyptic dystopian view of the future. What it really is, is a piece of literary mastery that does what good literature does best: states where we are, where we came from, and where we are going as a people, a culture. American Gods reminds us that while some Americans have always been here, most of us are or our ancestors were immigrants and that when we or our families came to America, pieces of culture came too. But as time progresses and generations begin to fade, so to do those pieces of culture, and new ones spring up in their place.

In a sense, American Gods is told from the perspective of those fading pieces of culture. We learn of the struggles they faced to get here and what is happening to them now that they are becoming forgotten. We are an audience to their pain, their helplessness, and their futile endeavors as they come to terms with their evident obsolescence. It makes me think of my family, who immigrated to America three generations ago, and how as we lose certain members so to do we lose an emphasis on the traditions they kept so rooted. I think that on some level everyone can relate to American Gods, and you certainly don’t have to be American to feel the impact of the story’s themes.

If you haven’t read this book you should. I guarantee it will be one of the best books you’ve ever read. If you’re TBR list looks like mine and you can’t add American Gods to the top, please just make sure you read it before it’s turned into a TV Series. While I will probably watch the show because I love the story that much, there is just no way visual media can do this book justice. The literary value American Gods is too great. Once you read the book (or if you like spoilers) come back and click here and here to have your mind blown.

With so many books and so little time, a must read like this is a relief. There is nothing worse than finally delving into a much hyped must read to find it doesn’t live up to expectation. American Gods is must read worth reading. And it’s a stand-alone (although there is other source material to read and maybe even a sequel coming) which means you don’t have to worry about devoting the better portion of a year to finishing a double digit doorstopper series.

The Math

Baseline assessment: 10/10

Bonuses: +1 for not whitewashing Shadow

Penalties: -1 for reviewer bias (since my background is in Anthropology and English criticism I may be somewhat bias towards this book)

Nerd coefficient: still 10/10 and I’d give it an 11 if I could

-- Tia

Reference: Gaiman, Neil. American Gods [William Morrow, Headline, 2001]