Off the Charts: Fond Farewell to Futurama

On May 1, 2013May 1, 2013 By James CastroIn Reviews, TV ShowsLeave a comment

In 1999 a terrific show aired its first episode. It was smart, yet low brow; classy, yet crude; and cruel, yet hilarious. I have never before, or since, seen a show that could so span genres and play with emotions, pop culture, and trending topics as well as it did. It could actually make you tear up in the same episode your sides hurt from laughter. One of the best shows, consistently, I’ve ever seen. And now it’s come to an end…….again….

Yes I’m talking about Futurama.

Futurama is a singular show. You care deeply about the characters, their plights, and their relationships, but can still laugh uproariously when they get heads hacked off (only to be put back on again. It’s the future, people!) I started watching Fry, Leela, Bender, Amy, and company from premiere night. I knew it would be my kind of show, and I’ve followed it religiously since.

Fox never knew how to use the smart writing and thought it should play to the same market as The Simpsons. (Ok to get something off my chest…I LOVE(D) The Simpsons. I thought it was one of the best shows ever made…from about 1989-1998… Since then it has become a showcase of Homer’s high-pitched screaming, and nonsensical guest stars…I haven’t watched a new one in years and don’t plan to) Fox put it on adjacent to its venerable yellow-skinned family comedy and hoped to capture the same crowd. Unfortunately, by then, the Simpsons’ comedy had become a little “dumber” while Futurama played to a newer “uber-nerd” crowd and was written by math, physics, and computer science PhDs.

The show was pre-empted by sports, moved to and from various time slots, and delayed (and delayed, and delayed) until it was finally “cancelled” in 2003.

After extended runs on the Cartoon Network, Futurama fan outcry was such they creators made four direct-to-dvd movies and eventually found their way onto Comedy Central where they’ve run the past four years.

It was a strange event to see a show cancelled, brought back on DVD, and then renewed on a whole new network. But I was thrilled to see it back. It was just as funny and insightful as ever, and without the network TV yoke could add a little extra crude humor to the mix.

All of the voices returned, which is essential as the BEST, seriously people, the BEST voice acting possible can be seen in this show. Billy West, John DiMaggio, Katey Sagal, Phil Lamarr, Lauren Tom, Maurice LaMarche, Tress McNeille, Dave Herman, Tom Kenny and the legendary Frank Welker make the finest ensemble cast I’ve ever seen. And they truly make you appreciate good voice acting, especially when compared to the celebrity-voiced cartoon features cranked out by Hollywood nowadays!

Now the show’s third incarnation will sadly come to an end in September. Which means one of the greatest shows to ever air must also have the distinction of being one of the most cancelled programs in TV history.

To me this is one of the reasons TV is in the state that it’s in, and why more and more viewers are turning to fan-supported programs on YouTube and other internet sites. Yes they run on “ratings” too, however with an audience (like me) able to watch and have our ratings count at non-standard times (I’ve found people in my generation may not want to watch the show when the channel airs it, the internet provides us this option!) our views count whether we’re watching on release day or weeks later. Granted for every Geek & Sundry there is Annoying Orange but both can live in harmony on the internet rather than in competition. Unlike TV where great shows like Futurama go up against the likes of Honey Boo Boo and somehow come up short.

Though David X. Cohen, the terrific co-creator of Futurama, has stated the show will never again return like it did before, I’m holding out hopes we’ll see something of the characters again. How about a theater feature, guys? Your fans will come out to support you!

I’ll still relive the show again and again on DVD (and for those who don’t own them, this is a series that is a MUST buy on dvd. Don’t think you get the full enjoyment watching it on Netflix. The audio commentaries for this series are the best ever. Seriously EVER. As good as the show without them.) and hope that Futurama somehow attains more unlikely one-ups than can be found in a 1988 issue of Nintendo Power.

If it doesn’t (which it likely won’t) it will be one show I will truly miss. It represented the best that TV could put together. Well-made, well-written, well-acted programming that made you feel the people behind it truly cared about their show rather than just produced it to make a few extra bucks or pander to the lowest common denominator.

So here’s to Futurama. ::spooky tremolo:: Good bye to the world of tomorrow! (I hope to see you again out there!)

Official Website

Great fan page, Can’t Get Enough Futurama

Off the Edge #3: Random Annoyances

On April 24, 2013April 23, 2013 By James CastroIn Opinions, Random FunLeave a comment

As anyone with the internet, a PC, a car, or a television…I get a little tired of things sometimes. Not just typical annoying things, but other things that might seem harmless, or even wildly popular, but for some reason I just get incredibly weary of some aspects about the culture and just life in general. Just for fun (bring it on internet) I thought I’d do a list of the things that have been especially annoying recently in no particular order:

People: They’re rude, selfish, and needlessly hateful. In fact it’s such a surprise when someone is civil you aren’t quite sure how to take it. When you get the note from the guy who scratched your car or a “thanks for the tip” on a youtube comment it’s stunning.
Reality TV: I used to wonder when this trend would end. I don’t think it will. There are way too many shows with washed-up celebrities and/or “regular people” competing or behaving stupidly on TV. I only turn my television on for 2-3 shows. If I see one more person crying on TV I may just wait til things show up online and give up cable altogether…
Dropping Things: How do they vanish into oblivion? I dropped it straight down. I can understand it might bounce an inch or two but how did it get 12 feet away underneath the aquarium?
Parking: How on earth do people NOT hit the lines? Ok we all can leave a poor attempt at parking on occasion but I’ve noticed a LOT of people park consistently badly and leave it. When you use the same parking lot every day you can see the same white truck or the same blue car crooked over the lines. If they have that much trouble with painted lines while stationary I live in fear of how they deal with them while moving.
Hipsters: What pop-culture crypt spawned these foul creatures? They’re this generation’s beatniks; only instead of being annoying poets they mostly just criticize annoying poets. For not being annoying enough. That’s a double whammy.
Geek Culture: NOT geeks. I have no issue with dorks since I’m a huge dork myself, but it’s more the marketing toward geek culture that drives me insane and how people wear geek culture like a jacket now. It used to be geek culture was driven by the geeks. Now people become geeks the way they become raver-kids or goths, they wear the clothes, watch the TV shows, and learn some lingo. It’s just what is popular right now.
Movies in CGI: Yeah that’s what it is now. No more CGI in movies. It’s more movies that are CGI. They’re all CGI. People don’t build sets anymore just green screens. No one builds props anymore, they’re just rendered. I’d rather see something in front of the camera than see an undulating cartoon character or more pixelated fire. I don’t think I could take seeing another computer-generated army running at another computer-generated army.
Model Glue: Why does it stick my fingers together better than the model parts?
Fanboyism: Sometimes people just can’t see the problems with their own beloved obsessions. Nothing is ALL good and what is good, better, and best is all a matter of personal opinion. So what’s with all the flame wars?
Apple: I know there are scores of Mac lovers but honestly I find Apple’s practices as insidious as anyone’s…probably more-so. The big problem is some publishers ONLY publish their digital material in the iTunes store…to get it you have to have iJunk. So to get a 15 dollar book I need a 300 dollar device…
Traffic: I’ve noticed nearly all traffic problems are caused by selfish and/or over-reactive people. One jackass stops or pulls out in front of everyone and that spot will sometimes create a chain-reaction back-up for hours.
Haters: People who only find the negative in things. “It’s a great ::blank:: but it has this stupid thing.” Or “It would’ve been perfect but ::whatever:: ruined it.” And yes, I see the irony in having haters on a list about things that annoy me!

That’s all I can think of now. Again, this is just me. We’re all allowed our opinions so feel free to disagree!

And as usual, it’s all just good fun 🙂

Off the Charts: River Monsters

On April 18, 2013April 18, 2013 By James CastroIn Reviews, TV ShowsLeave a comment

“I love a fishing show.”

Words I never thought I’d say. Or even consider. Having grown up in the era of Bill Dance and Bass Masters and seeing balding men in fiber glass boats holding skinny fishing rods on calm lakes I can see why that would be… But in 2009 Jeremy Wade changed the dynamic with the show River Monsters.

I first thought the show would be a Monster Quest-style hunt for cryptozoological creatures. It still sounded intriguing, but a little kooky. Then I thought it would be some kind of sensationalist program where they kill big fish and show them on camera.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was neither of those things.

The show is part detective show, part environmental show, part fishing show, part anthropological show, and part travel show. It does all of those things better than almost any show I’ve seen.

Jeremy Wade is kind of the man. It’s weird to say that about a fisherman given my TNT fishing show upbringing. He’s a real outdoorsman (not the camo jacket, shaggy beard type). Jeremy can live in the rainforest, with local tribes, or in 3^rd world urban sprawl all the same. He’s also a biologist, so instead of just fishing and looking at the big creature he understands its evolution, how it lives, and how it fits into the ecosystem.

He makes fishing a scientific extreme sport, both cerebral and physical. He has strategies and it’s fascinating to hear how to go about catching different kinds of fish. Where to set up a line (hearing him strategize about fishing in rapids, near the swirling slack, with an eddy nearby in case he falls in is pretty interesting. The few times I’ve been fishing I randomly threw my bait in. No wonder I’ve only ever caught one blue gill…); what kinds of hooks, baits, and lines to use; and most importantly his regard for the fish he’s catching. He reveres them and doesn’t want them to come to harm. He’d rather have them understood and respected the way he respects them.

He is as deferential to the people he meets on his journeys. He wholeheartedly takes parts in the local customs, traditions, and superstitions. He often says his logical side knows it should work…but the number of times he struggles with catching what he’s looking for, meets with the local shaman, then finds it are remarkable.

My favorite episode (except maybe the season finale of last season or the season premiere of the current season) is the pilot, before it was even called River Monsters, fishing for a monster fish in a fantastical river in India. Seeing the creature he finally pulls from the river (and what he does to catch it) made for truly terrific television.

Jeremy Wade with the Goonch he caught on the River Monsters pilot.

Some of my favorite episodes are the ones you can’t find to buy unfortunately. He produced a show prior to the River Monsters run that involved a trek into the South American jungle in search for an Arapaima. We see the cameras rolling when his plane goes down in the jungle and…then see the journey continue after a day of recovery. There is also a two-hour version of the pilot that is even better than the air version.

When the world lost Steve Irwin, an environmentalist of true enthusiasm, integrity, and charisma I wondered whether environmental entertainment would ever be the same. Jeremy Wade is similar in many ways, his love for the environment, his desire to teach them to his viewers, and his utter stubborn dedication to accomplish his goals are all the same. He does replace Irwin’s unbridled enthusiasm with a stoic intellectualism that is charismatic in its own way.

It’s one of the best shows on television. If you haven’t seen it check it out. It’s a rare gem on TV these days!

Check out the official website here.

Jeremy Wade’s official website.

Story of the Month Spring n’ Spiders

On April 16, 2013April 16, 2013 By James CastroIn Story of the MonthLeave a comment

It’s spring! In addition to warming weather, tempestuous storms, and the return of green to the world around us spring also means…bugs…

As a rule I have no distaste for insects, bugs, or mollusks that we share our world with, and this can be surprising as some of the encounters I’ve had would make you think otherwise! As story of the month this month I’ll share one of my most memorable encounters with the various domestic invertebrates found in the southern United States:

Spring n’ Spiders

I inherited a garage room as a senior in high school after a brown recluse spider was found stuck to a glue trap and my mom refused to sleep there any longer. As it was the biggest room in the house (with an outside door!) I didn’t hesitate to take it, but soon found the trapped spider had friends…hundreds of them…

At first seeing one of them would send me fleeing the room and sleeping on the couch in a different room. After a while I got used to them. Taking them out casually with a length of cedar pole or a riding crop (WHACK it’d cut them right in half…) I got from an art teacher.

One day, after finding a few of the glue traps I set so packed with the venomous little critters it had noticeable weight, I enlisted my friend Mike to come over, rip the room apart, open all the cupboards and closets, and bug bomb it into oblivion. So we did. Took the place apart, including the couch, cushions, bed, closet, the whole place.

Lit the fuse (literally…we didn’t know we were supposed to turn off the gas…the water heater was in there and we could have truly declared inquisitorial exterminatus on that end of the house…) and left. We came back after the allotted time and put everything back together. We put a pizza in the oven and turned on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and flipped through a sword catalog for fun.

Sitting there, chilling, I looked down and saw one of the little bastards sitting right in the middle of my chest. Normally pretty stoic I declared “Sunnuva bitch there’s one of em on me!” trampolined it off my shirt and into the floor, stomping it with my boot and grinding it across the carpet into shreds. Mike joined the melee by taking both cans of wasp spray we had and spraying its dismembered body with them like a gunslinger. We created possibly the deadest spider in the history of dead spiders…

Since then the brown recluse infestation has subsided. It went from hundreds of them at all stages of maturity, creeping from closets, out from under furniture (and in one disturbing encounter dozens rappelling down webs from the ceiling) to…none… At first I was mystified before I found a curio I bought had an infestation of its own…of cellar spiders. These harmless little rascals spin irregular webs under furniture and in corners…the perfect places to ensnare brown recluses. They did the job chemicals and smack ’em sticks couldn’t. And I happily traded one infestation for another.

Despite these encounters I still have no arachnophobia (despite creepy spider dreams occasionally) and even released a captured brown recluse by a tree outside my previous place of employment (I figured what’s one more spineless, cantankerous, creeper around there…) and even had a “pet” spider outside my house for a while. It goes to show nature might be creepy, and even dangerous, but it’s never to be hated or feared!

Enjoy the first few days of spring! There are more such “nature” encounters coming soon!

Off the Top of My Head #11: Roger Ebert

On April 11, 2013April 10, 2013 By James CastroIn Movies, Opinions, Random FunLeave a comment

We at RevPub love movies. We go to a lot of movies, buy a lot of movies, and watch a lot of movies on TV. Our love of the media made us especially sad to hear of the death of singular film critic Roger Ebert.

As I said in my Dreamlike Gaming post, it takes more than negativity to review movies. Roger Ebert loved movies. He had an undeserved reputation of being a “film snob” (this was more true of his partner Gene Siskel who died in 1999) but I’ve found this not to be true. He really loved movies and loved to watch them. He simply expected a lot of them, and when they failed to deliver never hesitated to tell us.

While many of the movies you’d expect him to dislike he happily obliged and those art house movies you’d expect him to gush over he often did, he could also surprise you by giving you a review of a film you’d expect him to hate and finding he loved it with a classic “this is the reason we go to the movies.” He could appreciate the deep themes of a terse drama as well as the big dumb fun of a well-made action film.

It is a pleasure to read his good reviews, whether you agree or disagree with him as he always give specific and valid reasons for his opinions. More fun, however, are his extremely negative reviews. When he hated (or hated, hated, hated) a movie; because he also had valid reasons for hating them and often had his sharpened pen ready to draw blood…

Roger Ebert showed us why film critics are a specific breed. He noticed aspects of films for his reviews after only his screening views I don’t notice until after repeated viewings and could make judgments using his epically deep knowledge of film history.

I’m incapable of describing the prowess of a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with the proper acumen so I’ll let the man speak for himself. But the next time you go to a movie raise your 44oz soda, frozen coke, bucket of popcorn, or tray of nachos to the true loss of a real film institution.

Here’s to Roger Ebert. We’ll miss you at the movies.

Roger Ebert’s Website

Some incredible negative reviews:

North

The Village

Deuce Bigalow European Gigalo

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

Reviews of some of my favorite films:

Seven Samurai

Yojimbo

Shaun of the Dead

Negative review books:

I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

Your Movie Sucks

A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length

Positive review books:

Roger Ebert’s Four Star Reviews

Roger Ebert’s Great Movies

Roger Ebert’s Great Movies II

Roger Ebert’s Great Movies III

Off the Charts: Clue the Movie

On April 3, 2013April 2, 2013 By James CastroIn Movies, ReviewsLeave a comment

I didn’t play a lot of board games as a kid. I played Candy Land, Cooties, Don’t Break the Ice, and Battleship, but we never really got a lot of board games to play. One I DO remember playing a lot of and enjoying was Clue. I had no idea about the Agatha Christie story on which it was based or even what the mystery genre was, but the grisly nature of it and the investigative thinking always made it fun.

I don’t recall ever winning…or losing at it to be honest. I’m not sure if I ever played through an ENTIRE game before my sister and I quit. But I loved to play it.

I was a young kid when the film adaptation came out so it totally passed me by. In fact I never saw it until the mid-1990s when it came out on HBO or Showtime, which ever movie channel our cable company offered at the time, and after seeing it ONE time it became absolutely one of my favorite comedies and likely has a place in my top ten favorite films list.

The premise is essentially the game. A group of strangers are in an old house. An individual, Mr. Boddy, is murdered and they go through the house looking for clues to see whodunit. The addition of the brilliant Tim Curry as the butler Wadsworth (adding to the mystery classic “the butler did it” cliché of the genre), the 50s setting, and the blackmail subplot all set the background of the manic plot, which plays out in a It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World kind of frenzy.

The entire casting is superb, my favorites (other than Curry….who is EVERYONE’S favorite) are Michael McKean as Mr Green, Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard, and the irreplaceable Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White. That’s not to downplay any of the rest of the cast, there wasn’t a single misstep in the casting which also includes Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum, Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet, Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock, and Colleen Camp as the first French maid I ever saw on film…

In addition to the great acting and cast, the film offers some of the funniest dialog set pieces and is as quotable as the Godfather and Scarface combined. From Tim Curry’s patented “NNnnnoo” (which is delivered at its best here), to the finest rapid-fire comedy exchanges this side of Abbot and Costello.

Favorites include:

Mrs. White: We had had a very humiliating public confrontation. He was deranged. He was a lunatic! He didn’t actually seem to like me very much; he had threatened to kill me in public.
Miss Scarlet: Why would he want to kill you in public?
Wadsworth: I think she meant he threatened, in public, to kill her.

The Motorist: Where is it?
Wadsworth: What? The body?
The Motorist: The phone. What body?
Wadsworth: There’s no body. Nobody. There’s-there’s nobody in the study.

Professor Plum: What is your top-secret job, Colonel?
Wadsworth: I can tell you. He’s working on the secret of the next fusion bomb.
Colonel Mustard: How did you know that?
Wadsworth: Can you keep a secret?
Colonel Mustard: Yes.
Wadsworth: So can I…

And what has become my person favorite moment:

Wadsworth: You see? Like the Mounties, we always get our man.
Mr. Green: Mrs. Peacock was a man!?
(Colonel Mustard slaps Mr. Green, who spins from the recoil and is slapped again by Wadsworth)

One of the innovations with this film was multiple endings. No, not the lame dvd extra fodder that every movie makes now…but actual endings, released with different prints of the film. There were three endings and depending when and where you saw the film you may see a completely different ending from someone who saw the film elsewhere or at a different showing. It’s the kind of gimmick that harkens back to the William Castle days of showmanship and shows real deference to the source material. I never got to see it in theaters, but I can only imagine discussing this movie with friends and arguing over the ending…without realizing we were all (technically) right!

Clue is without a doubt fast-paced fun. Detractors describe it as overly frantic and silly, but it IS that kind of movie. It’s also very smart, incredibly well-written, and still one of the funniest films about a series of gruesome murders ever to be made. To quote Joe Bob, “Four Stars…check it out!”

As an aside, I’m such a fan of this movie that I find dialog and quotes seeping into my daily language almost subconsciously. This can go remarkably awry. Once in college I was at lunch with a very attractive girl who was telling me an interminable and flaky story. She ended said story with the classic “To make a long story short…” to which I reflexively responded “Too late!” thanks to Clue she was not happy…and the date, so to speak, met its end killed by me, in the Dining Room, with a smart-ass comment…

Revenant Publications

Author: James Castro