2015-16 TV Season Recap, Part Two

Thank you for sticking with me for part two of my 2015-16 TV Season Recap, where I will be focusing on three exclusive Netflix series. If you have yet to catch up on my other installments of the TV season, check out the following links:


Part 1 (South Park, Simpsons, Family Guy, American Grit, 30 for 30)
Part 3 (Game of Thrones, Leftovers, Ballers, Agent Carter)
Part 4 (Gotham, Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow)


Netflix Exclusives

Daredevil - This past year I ended up binge watching both seasons of the first exclusive Marvel series on Netflix. Daredevil is some addicting television. In the months preceding my beginning of binge watching both seasons I binge-read the 110 issues of Daredevil volume 2 that originally ran from 1998-2008 to get some extra background and familiarity with the characters and plotlines. That run of books is especially good, and the darker tone of that run of Daredevil comes across on the Netflix series too.

The first season is about Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Paige (Deborah Woll) becoming a team and setting up their law office as struggling rookie lawyers. In his off hours, Murdock busts out his homemade outfit (the buildup and moment when Murdock debuts his final costume is easily my favorite moment of season one) and keeps the streets of Hell’s Kitchen safe. The opening episodes dealing with Daredevil’s origin were well done, but the early season one highlight is the incredible hallway fight scene that dared to take on Old Boy for best hallway fight scene ever. Both are still lots of fun to take in, but it is hard to say which one I like more, why not you watch both clips and decide for yourself?

The casting is excellent for the three primary players in Daredevil, although I am not entirely sold on season one’s antagonist, Wilson Fisk. Vincent D'Onofrio definitely looks the part, but I feel he tries too hard for speaking in deadly undertones. He makes a few appearances in season two, and I kind of came around on him by that point as he delivers some brutal beatdowns that definitely feel Kingpin-caliber. However, I feel like there is still something about his presentation that just feels off for whatever reason.

Speaking of season two, Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) absolutely steals season two! Daredevil’s portrayal of Castle as an anti-hero definitely is on point with how he has best been portrayed in the comic and you never really know whether to root for him or hate him throughout the season. The producers did an excellent job of having Castle walk in many shades of gray throughout the season, and the Punisher fanboy in me is super happy he had the standout fight scene of the season! I am still in disbelief that Marvel was as impressed with the Punisher in this season as much as I was that they gave Netflix a bonus season of programming beyond their original contract so they can dedicate a season to the Punisher.

Not only does Punisher steal the season, he also saves it, because as season two marches along we are introduced to Murdock’s former friend and foe, Elektra (Elodie Yung) and their antagonist for the season, the Japanese supernatural ninja outfit known as The Hand. The story arcs dealing with The Hand in the comics I read of Daredevil were the only ones I did not really care for because the whole supernatural mystique of The Hand and Elektra were just a bit too out there for me to buy into, and those same plot notes hit the same marks on the TV series also. Luckily, we get to see Daredevil and Elektra team up for some righteous fight scenes to deal with The Hand, but much like the puddies and the foot clan on other shows, the Hand more-or-less comes across as meaningless cannon fodder. The way that arc concludes also does not give me high hopes for season three, but if the awesome action scenes, overall dark and edgy tone of the show and great all around acting remains then I will remain on board for whatever season three brings to the table.
Season One Grade: A
Season Two Grade: B-

Jessica Jones - I did not think Netflix could get any darker and edgier with what they accomplished in Daredevil, but they manage to top themselves with Jessica Jones. Jones (Krysten Ritter) is a foul-mouthed, sassy private investigator who has her own superpowers that enable her to succeed in her sole proprietorship. All is not well when she bumps into an old friend, Kilgrave (David Tennant) who has the ability of mind control. I am not too familiar with Jones’ comic background so when I first saw Kilgrave and his whole mind control ability I foolishly dismissed it as on old TV-villain trope. However, the producers behind this Netflix series pushed this ability to all kinds of devious limits that you have to see to believe that they went that far and somehow managed to pull it off to be a believable force to be reckoned with.

The season has a lot of interesting twists throughout as they are constantly on the run from Kilgrave, and I was a fan of the ingenuity they displayed with the contraption they came up with to handle Kilgrave. Of course he could not be contained, and it was just as much fun to watch him one up Jones and company and how the two ultimately clashed in their final showdown of the season. Like Daredevil, Jessica Jones is just as well casted with best friend/adopted sister Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) serving well as the only person she can trust, and characters Malcolm and Will both undergoing season-spanning transformation I was a little skeptical at first with, but both worked out splendidly in the end. This season also introduces us to bartender, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) who will later be receiving his own Netflix original series that I will definitely be tuning into because this season was a terrific sneak peek at what abilities and powers his character brings to the table.

My only qualm with this season is it takes a page out of other shows like Spartacus and Game of Thrones by being a borderline softcore porn the first couple of episodes in order to attract more mainstream eyeballs before we get more of the bigger picture of what Jessica Jones is all about. I always felt that as a cheap production tactic and seems below Marvel, but I guess it showed the faith both Marvel and Netflix had going into the series’ premiere. Good to hear though that it got renewed for a second season that should be hitting within a few months.
Grade: A

The Jamz - My brother recommended this show to me so I was instantly trepid knowing his viewing habits. However since this was only four, half hour episodes I deemed it another low-term investment much like South Park was this season. Anywho, The Jamz is about two nimrod overnight radio DJs Fitzy (Jim Kozyra) & Jay-Jay (Chris Petlak) who have everything go wrong for them. Actually that is probably my gripe with this entire cast, is that all their fellow peers at the radio station also all try to be a little too much like Taco off of The League. I can tolerate one of those characters, but to have an entire cast of a show act all flakey and cracking nonstop hit-or-miss zingers is too much.

The only person who is not a tool on this show is the janitor who one of the DJs go to for his sage wisdom in an OK running gag. The one running gag I really did enjoy for these four episodes is the intern (Rammel Chan) at the station who does not talk a single word until one pivotal moment that I was waiting the entire series for, and of course slapping myself when I did not see it coming. There are good jokes and gags in each episode, but they need to pace them out better and try and get a couple more down-to-earth characters to help diversify the cast and improve the overall flow in an episode in order for The Jamz to have some staying power.
Grade: C

That wraps up part two, join me for part three as I will be covering a few exclusive HBO shows.

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
Angry Videogame Nerd Vol 8
Angry Videogame Nerd Vol 7
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle

2015-16 TV Season Recap, Part One

Now it is time for one of my favorite entries of the year, and that is my annual TV season recap. Here are links to my 2013-14 and 2014-15 TV season recaps in case you missed them. This past year I stayed current with the most ongoing TV series than I ever have in quite some time. I will credit that to HBO Now being a wonderful app, and switching to no commercials on Hulu Plus is definitely worth a couple extra dollars a month and allowed me to use that time saved on investing in a couple other shows this season. Since I have really upped the amount of TV shows I am covering this season edition of the TV Season recap will be a four part piece. If you want to ride this out with me please check out the other installments:

Part 2 (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Jamz)
Part 3 (Game of Thrones, Leftovers, Ballers, Agent Carter)
Part 4 (Gotham, Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow)



Animation

South Park - For the first time in many, many years I have watched an entire season of South Park. For the last decade or so I would only watch an episode or two a season that was generating a lot of buzz online and I was fine with that. This past year however, a coworker who is an avid fan of the show kept recommending the new episodes to me, and since they are on Hulu and pretty quick watches at around 20 minutes each with no commercials it made for a low-term commitment. I am glad I stuck with it.

I believe this is one of the first seasons of South Park to feature a season-spanning story arc. This season we witness the rise, fall and rise of a character that comes to be known as PC Principal. Nearly each of the ten episodes this season is a winner as South Park Elementary finds itself under the rule of a new principal that is all about ‘checking your privilege.’ Like almost any other South Park episode I lost track of what they were spoofing, and had no idea what side they ultimately fell on, but it made for a hell of a fun watch the entire season. PC Principal is part of a frat house of fellow PC-brothers and watching Stan’s dad join the frat results in many classic moments for Stan’s dad, which is saying a lot actually. Also the long overdue episode spoofing Yelp gets super-high marks from me and has a must-see music video at the end of the episode. Grade: A

The Simpsons/Family Guy - I only got through about seven or eight episodes this season for both long running FOX animated series. I am nowhere near as big a fan of these shows I was around 10 years ago for Family Guy and 20 years ago for The Simpsons. Since both shows are quick watches though, I would occasionally throw in an episode in the background or to nod off to bed to and just to see if either of these shows were still capable of me enjoying them as much as I once did. The Simpsons had a couple of fun episodes including a Halloween-themed episode of the family getting lost in a scary amusement park, which was followed up by another smashing installment of their annual Treehouse of Horror episodes.

The iconic South Park manatees episode from several years ago, in combination with an awful spoof of 12 Angry Men from a few years back resulted in me really falling off the Family Guy wagon. I will still watch an occasional episode, and from what I have seen so far this season this show just does not have it anymore for me. The occasional joke still clicks for me, but of the eight episodes I have seen this season, the only one I actually enjoyed was where Stewie built a robot friend that turned against him. I guess the episode with Joe suffering a terrible accident and winding up nearly 100% paralyzed was not too shabby either. Since I did not make it all the way through either series this season it would be unfair to grade either so, Grade: n/a

Reality

American Grit - I usually avoid most reality shows unless it involves wrestling or wrestlers as hosts or competitors. Rest assured, I dug me some seasons of Tough Enough and Bullrun in the past! American Grit however is having the one and only John Cena hosting this competition where four teams of four compete in military themed obstacle courses and challenges to test their resolve and vigor. Each team is headed up by a military veteran, and the show pulls out all the reality show bag of tricks like having one incredibly unlikeable person you want to see eliminated right away and a couple of super-charismatic, down-to-earth folks you want to see rise above and win at all costs. I am looking at you Tony!

The weekly challenge, called ‘evolutions’ had all kinds of unique twists and were pretty entertaining to watch, and the beast of an obstacle course three people competed in each episode seemed like a contemporary version of ‘the eliminator’ from American Gladiators. There were a lot of good moments of teams coming together to win competitions and obstacles, and just as entertaining to find some teams in certain weeks where things were just not clicking and falling apart. Love him or hate him, the charismatic John Cena made an excellent host and I was rooting along with him this season for all the competitors and he also excelled in great one-on-one pep talks that provided extra insight on all the competitors’ personal lives throughout the season. If American Gladiators meets boot camp drills sounds like a killer combo for you, then hopefully you will dig American Grit as much as I did! Grade: A

ESPN 30 for 30 2015-16 Season and Shorts - ESPN continues to deliver on their acclaimed 30 for 30 documentary series, where they collaborate with top Hollywood documentarians on making high-profile sports documentaries. I saw several from the past year, and I am kicking myself for not being able to watch the new four part 30 for 30, titled Made in America that is all about OJ Simpson which I absolutely want to see. Unfortunately I do not have cable, but Netflix streaming usually gets access to these about 30 to 60 days after they originally air.

I however did see Chasing Tyson, which chronicles the dream fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield that took nearly a decade of obstacles to happen, and the following bizarre shenanigans that ensued in the unbelievable rematch. Prince of Pennsylvania is the documentary version of the acclaimed indie film, Foxcatcher. This details the controversies behind the Foxcatcher wrestling team that results in the murder of Olympic Gold medalist, Dave Schultz. If you grew up a fan of football in the ‘90s then Four Falls of Buffalo gets my highest recommendations as it is all about the unfortunate Buffalo Bills losing four Super Bowls…in a row. As well produced, interviewed and detailed this documentary is, I could not help but get progressively depressed as it went along. I really like how it detailed probably the most identifiable moment of those four losses with Norwood missing the field goal that resulted in the Bills first Super Bowl loss, and how the whole Buffalo community rallied behind him and the Bills upon their return home in the most touching moment of the feature.

The ’85 Bears is the last main feature I will touch on, and it is the most recently aired of the four I have watched from the past year. 31 years after they won the Super Bowl and America still has not forgotten how good the ’85 Bears defense was that won them the Super Bowl. They will go down with the ’99 Ravens, 2002 Bucs and the 2015 Broncos as being the best defenses that overcame their underperforming offenses to win the Super Bowl. This documentary will help cement their legacy as it tracks down countless former ’85 Bears members like Mike Ditka, Mike Singletary, Buddy Ryan, ‘Refrigerator’ Perry, Steve McMichael and Jim McMahon, among others on how dominate they were that year. This documentary will also go down as having some of the final footage of the recently deceased-Buddy Ryan. The ’85 Bears periodically jumps back to a present day, ailing Buddy Ryan. He is receiving a visit from Mike Singletary as the two revisit old stomping ground and reminisces about the good ‘ol days and you can tell that the relationship between those two are special and genuine throughout. This feature concludes with a letter from Buddy Ryan to the Bears and there is a priceless shot of all the surviving Bears members reading it for the camera and getting their heartfelt reactions from it.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention Hulu posting nearly the entire 36 episode archive of 30 for 30 Shorts. These were made in collaboration with the old ESPN affiliated website, Grantland. Once every month or two Grantland would post a mini-documentary around 15 minutes long featuring a topic or moment in sports not quite worthy of a full-length feature, but had enough of its own 15 minutes of fame to be documented and remembered for 15 minutes. Some of these moments seem worthy of more than 15 minutes, where others seems about right. Some of my favorites of these 34 episodes include The Billion Dollar Game, which featured the only time a 16th seed coming ever-so-close of upsetting a 1 seed in March Madness. Another favorite is The Irrelevant Giant which is about the career of former football Giant John Tugle, who tragically had his career cut short, but has some fantastic memories from former teammates and coach, Bill Parcels. On a lighter note, some of these shorts serve as much needed moments of levity in sports focusing on a notorious sports-ball impersonator, the invention of the high-five and a infamous gag put on by Sports Illustrated that had many people fooled. If you were not following Grantland when these were released, they are all really quick watches and well worth taking a few afternoons to binge watch through. Grade: A+

Please join me soon for part two where I will be covering Netflix exclusives shows like Jessica Jones, Daredevil and The JAMZ!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
Angry Videogame Nerd Vol 8
Angry Videogame Nerd Vol 7
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle

12 Rounds 3: Lockdown

WWE wrestler Dean Ambrose won his first ever WWE World Heavyweight Championship this past Sunday at the 2016 Money in the Bank PPV. In celebration of that momentous feat, today I am covering his first ever lead role in the WWE Studios film that was released at the beginning of this year with 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (trailer).

There is a part of me that ponders why WWE keeps their film division going. Nearly every WWE film has pretty basic plots with nothing too involving and a lot of their films seem like a throwback to the old TBS Movies for Guys who like Movies pick of the night I referenced here before. The WWE films division has been operating since 2004, and after a couple of theatrical flops it quickly shifted to a more profitable direct-to-video format. Another part of me ponders why I keep watching almost every single WWE studio film. I usually rent the latest disc from Netflix, but I actually enjoyed the past two 12 Rounds films that featured John Cena and Randy Orton overcoming 12 challenges from the film’s villain so they can win back a loved one.

I never caught a preview for the third film and just presumed I was going in with the same premise, but this time with Dean Ambrose in the lead role. Instead, Lockdown redefines 12 Rounds as being the amount of bullets in a magazine clip that Ambrose has as he is locked down in his own police station with a bunch of corrupt cops that he must take down with just one magazine clip and his own crafty brand of MacGyver-know-how.

The film starts with the corrupt cop Tyler Burke (Roger Cross) and his squad of fellow crooked officers breaking in and stealing a bunch of data and executing their former associate. Little did they know their former associate had a backup file that Dean Ambrose’s character, John Shaw stumbles upon back at the station. Upon realizing this, Burke and his goons evacuate the station and lockdown the station with just them and Ambrose. They have a few hours until SWAT arrives to get to Shaw, and the only weapon Shaw has on him is his pistol that has just 12 rounds in it.

I blame myself for not checking out a preview before going into this to get caught off guard with this not playing out like the previous films, but once I realized what was transpiring I ended up digging the new theme as I was having a good time counting down the bullets Shaw was using throughout the film and how he was making every bullet count and finding alternate ways to take out the bad guys. There are a couple of intense firefights in here as Burke’s guys are chasing Shaw throughout the film and I like how they found a couple creative ways for Shaw to stay on the run.

For being his debut in a major film, and a lead role at that I actually dug Ambrose’s acting chops in here. He plays a much more relaxed, reserved character in Lockdown that is a 180 from his loose cannon counterpart he portrays on WWE TV. He will not be winning any prestige acting awards rest assured, but he manages to blend in well with the rest of the cast and seems comfortable in his role. The majority of the cast is mostly a bunch of Hollywood veterans from minor TV and film roles. The only ones I really recognized were Roger Cross from his 24 and Arrow days and longtime character actor, Lochlyn Munro from a handful of his many bit parts he was in over the years.

There are only two brief extra features on the BluRay of Lockdown. Resourceful Adversaries is a quick five minute piece interviewing the cast and crew setting up the premise of the film. Filming a Firefight is a six minute feature breaking down one of the intense shootouts I mentioned above and is a more interesting watch.

Like the rest of the WWE Studios productions, 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown is rather straightforward. I got what I expected out of this direct-to-video action feature, and it actually was a pretty decent pallet cleanser from a couple of more involving films I saw at the theater recently. Lockdown is most likely not must-see material for most if you are looking for top-notch action films, but if you are planning a movie night, and need a serviceable, quick film to turn your brain off and recharge inbetween more involved films, than Lockdown perfectly suits your needs!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

True Giants

WWE has released countless retrospectives on some of their best names in the business since their DVD business took off around the turn of the century. Minus a few exceptions, few of those career spanning retrospectives cover the “Big Men” of the business, aka the several hundred pound goliaths who tower over their competition. I can only think of a handful off the top of my head with past career-spanning DVDs dedicated to Andre the Giant, Kane, Undertaker and Big Show. There have been plenty more giants over the years that deserve that special treatment, and 2014’s True Giants (trailer) is WWE’s remedy to that situation.

If you remember WWE’s Greatest Stars of the 80s/90s DVDs, then you will be familiar with the format of True Giants. Instead of feature length documentaries on each star featured, we get roughly ten minute mini-documentaries on each of the 15 wrestlers spotlighted (up that to 19 if you invest in the BluRay). In an ideal world nearly every wrestler featured in True Giants is worthy of a documentary of at least an hour, especially considering guys featured here like Sid, Vader, Kevin Nash Big John Studd, King Kong Bundy and Mark Henry have all had prolific careers and this is the first time a WWE DVD retrospective has focused on their singles career. For the theme and format of this collection, I get where WWE is coming from with the mini-documentaries on each star, and for what they pulled off, they did it quite well.

For wrestlers still living, WWE recorded all new interviews with talent like Big Show, Kevin Nash, Sid Eudy, Vader and Mark Henry. For wrestlers who have passes away they tracked down a former friend in the business to interview about their career and tales from the road. Some of the talent interviewed for tributes include Pat Patterson honoring Gorilla Monsoon, Ken Patera remembering Big John Studd, Paul Heyman discussing Bam Bam Bigelow, Bill Apter sharing about Haystacks Calhoun and Tim White spreading lots of love for Andre the Giant.

While hitting the major bullet points of their respective careers they are covering, these felt more like WWE Hall-of-Fame induction speeches, and I have no problem with that at all. As short as these interviews were, I was pretty glued in to most of them because a lot of the talent featured here have never been interviewed on any other WWE DVDs or WWE Network specials. To the best of my knowledge, True Giants features the following talent making their interview debut on WWE Home Video: One Man Gang, Ken Patera, Psycho Sid/Vicious, Vader and Abdullah the Butcher. I will give props to WWE for going the extra mile to interview a lot of these guys for the first time.

One more time to emphasize, if you are looking for in-depth features on a lot of these guys then you came to the wrong place, but for newer fans this provides a great cliffs notes version of each big man featured. There are a ton of extra matches on True Giants. The DVD has 27 bouts, while the BluRay contains several extra upping the total to 32. As nice as that match count is, I hate to break it to you but until around the turn of the century it was rare to find big men wrestlers that had good mobility and were capable of keeping up speed-and-ability wise with their lighter competition much like guys as Kevin Owens today. There were a few exceptions like Bam Bam Bigelow, Big Boss Man and Vader of being quality big man workers in the ring, but that was about it.

As a result about two thirds of the matches on this collection are not even worth your time. A majority of them are quick squash matches, or oddball matches that result in strange DQ finishes. For example, of the 12 matches on the first BluRay disc, I only noted three of them as worth watching. One being a Bruno Sammartino/Ernie Ladd match that had an old school smash-mouth style throughout. The second being a six man tag featuring Andre the Giant, Dusty Rhodes, Junkyard Dog, Ernie Ladd and the Wild Samoans in all out brawl, and finally a super hot crowd rightly going bonkers for a fantastic UWF Title match between One Man Gang and Ted Dibiase.

Of the 20 matches on the second disc I noted only seven as being worth your time including a rare time the Hulkster and Flair squared off on WWE TV in an early ’92 tag match. Another good match up features Diesel winning his first singles gold from Razor Ramon on a ’94 episode of Superstars. WWE loves to abuse the “David vs. Goliath” story arc, and the only time it really worked of the matches in this collection is in a very good encounter between Mark Henry and Rey Mysterio in 2006. So do the math, and having only 10 of 32 matches consisting of good quality in this BluRay collection is not that great of a value. For what it is worth there is some kind of unintentional human car crash factor for the wacky finishes and quick squashes a lot of these matches have and the fact that they feature a diverse cast that usually do not dominate home video releases make them stand out in a unique way.

I would not say I am all about the big man wrestlers in the grand scheme of wrestling, but I have always respected the spectacle and diversity they bring to a wrestling card. Even more so I appreciate how most have evolved into holding their own with the main stars of the roster over the years and True Giants definitely captures the evolution of the biggest big men of the sport. If you are looking for thorough documentaries and just sheer match quality then you can skip this one, but if you are more of a wrestling historian than True Giants is definitely a must-have set in your collection that WWE Home Video has rarely touched on before.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
Wrestlemania 31
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015

redvsblue Season 13

At long last I am now caught up with the latest redvsblue seasons on video. Today I am covering season 13 (trailer) of the popular web series using in-game animation from the best-selling game series, Halo. Season 13 marks the third and final part of the story arc taking place on the planet Chorrus where the reds and blues crash landed on their journey back home only to discover they landed in the midst of a civil war.

Season 13 picks up with the two warring factions of Chorrus, the Federal Army headed up by General Doyle (Gray Haddock) and the New Republic lead by Kimball (Lindsay Jones) forming an uneasy alliance. Together, they take on a new threat that is a band of space pirate mercs lead by special agents Felix (Miles Luna) and Locus (Gray Haddock).

While season 12 ended with both the feds/NR realizing they have been duped and unite in hopes of defeating this enemy, the well told story of season 13 is both sides overcoming their past differences to work together. There is a well produced season-spanning arc with Kimball and Doyle constantly having doubts and barely holding their alliance together, which climaxes with Doyle making an imperative decision and Kimball giving a vital rallying cry to the troops in two standout moments this season. The storytelling has come a long way from the early seasons of RvB, and yes the trademark humor and wisecracks are still here, but props to season 13 writer and director, Miles Luna on this story arc for crafting a legitimately good plot to get invested in.

Once again Rooster Teeth delivers several standout custom CG animated scenes this season. Season 13 opens with a very exquisitely detailed CG scene of the space pirates raiding a prisoner transport vessel. As the season progresses the fights get more intense and inventive, paying off in a climatic tag team encounter between Agents Washington (Shannon McCormick) and Carolina (Jen Brown) against Felix and Locus.

Speaking of the space pirates, they have a new heavy on their side this season in the form of Sharkface (David Jennison) who has his own unique backstory with Kimball. The pirates also gain the services of former Freelancer higher up, Counselor Price (Asaf Ronen) who naturally has his own agenda up his sleeve. Back with the core reds and blues Tucker (Jason Saldaña) is still coming to terms with his new responsibilities heading up his own squad of misfits we are introduced to last season while also trying to comprehend that his plasma sword has a few ancient secrets that play an important role this season. Tucker’s new squad did not really win me over last season as they all seemed too hokey to root for and I was relieved that they play a much minor role this season, where they are sprinkled in just enough throughout to remind you that they exist. Caboose (Joel Heyman) has plenty of comic relief moments which he has no problem in getting me to crack up thanks to his new AI-enhanced gun which had a few well-timed moments this season.

On the red side of things newly promoted Colonel Sarge (Matt Hullum) has a few fun moments this season dragging along Grif(Geoff Ramsey) and Simmons (Gus Sorola) into the frontlines of the battlefield to kick ass. One of my favorite running gags throughout the series has been the reds’ Warthog polka music having a surprise cameo in nearly every season, and rest assured it returns in all its glory in season 13. Donut (Dan Godwin) & Lopez (Burnie Burns) are the reds’ comic relief, as both prove they are reliable armory specialists this season. I dug the expected cameos this season as well, as some characters have very brief blink-and-you’ll miss them cameos, while another one returns in a more featured role halfway into the season.

Minus a few scenes this season, the core reds and blues are not the major characters this season as the core focus is on the Feds/NR alliance against the space pirates and a few other dangling plot threads this season. It was a bold move to make this season, but I felt it paid off with a gratifying conclusion to the three-part Chorrus arc. The big qualifier I had with this season is you probably want to watch it in a few sittings as it clocks in at just under three hours as one of the longest RvB seasons yet. I watched it in two sittings and that seemed to do the trick for me.

As usual, this disc has a good chunk of extra features to consume. I will give props once again to Rooster Teeth for including subtitles for a second straight season. Writer & Director Miles Luna is joined by rotating members of the cast and crew for the commentary track again this season and Luna knows how to keep a good commentary track flowing with constant chatter on topics relating to behind-the-scenes antics and excitement over their tech tricks and being able to work with a new program called Faceshift that is responsible for their excellent lip syncing this season.

There are four PSAs included totaling 21 minutes with “Rehashed” and “#1 Film in Galaxy 2” being the standouts that are all about remakes of previous PSAs and a epic trailer for a Sarge-Tucker buddy film, respectively. There are six mini-features totaling roughly 35 minutes covering topics like motion capture, the constantly evolving score of the series, the relationship of Locus and Felix and pre-to-post production of an episode. The standout feature is Leaving Chorrus where the cast and crew reflect on the completed trilogy and how they made some bold storytelling decisions against fan backlash and decided to stick to their guns and see their vision to the end.

The three-part Chorrus arc features some of the best storytelling of the entire series. It took me awhile to get fully on board, but once the primary new players were fleshed out and I realized what was at stake I was fully on board. If you thought you were done with RvB after the Bloodgulch Chronicles or Project Freelancer, than you may want to think twice and give the Chorrus War a watch because it is definitely worth your time. As for me, after 13 seasons and getting caught up over the course of a year and a half I am once again going to take a well-earned hiatus from redvsblue. Thanks for joining me throughout these blogs if you have made it throughout this entire journey of RvB with me.

Past redvsblue Blogs

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4 and Grifball Bonus Discs
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12
RvBX Bonus Discs

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I will keep up the theme of my random backlog movie of the month coinciding with the sequel just hitting theaters. In March I featured Man of Steel in time for Batman v Superman, in April it was Age of Ultron in time for Civil War and this month I am covering 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (trailer) just in time for X-Men Apocalypse.

The fact that FOX has kept the continuity going across all the X-Men films since the first one hit in 2000 is quite the feat. If my math is right, Apocalypse will be the ninth film in the X-Men universe. With so many films across so many years, just like actual comics, there are all kinds of moments where the cannon contradicts itself in later films or make convenient lines of dialogue to explain why some characters are in certain movies. This fan clip right here helps a lot in order to try and piece together all the various timelines on what is and is not relevant today.

Days of Future Past throws a lot more into the already overflowing X-Men canonical pot by introducing time travel. This film starts off in the not so distant future of 2023 where the mutant race is either extinct or imprisoned. A small remaining squad of X-Men is constantly on the run from the all-powerful Sentinels. Magneto (Ian McKellen) & Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) team up and send Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) present day conscience back into his 1973 body to prevent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from pulling off an assassination that was the impetus for the Sentinel program. The bulk of this movie takes place in 1973 with occasional jumps to the present. That means this takes place 11 years after the events of the previous film, X-Men: First Class, and like that film we are treated to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender’s excellent portrayals of the younger versions of Professor Xavier and Magneto, respectively.

Minus a brief cameo in First Class, Days of Future Past is the first movie of the franchise to have a major crossover of actors from the original trilogy of the first three X-Men films and the prequel trilogy that is wrapping up with Apocalypse. There are several new mutants making their debut here, and several past favorites returning in small supporting roles. The complete list of mutants featured is too long for me to run down here, so please check out this link with the cast list here to see if your favorite mutants made the cut, odds are they probably did. The film primarily follows around several key mutants in this film, so you do not really get to see a lot of these background players in featured roles. I am not the biggest fan of Halle Barry’s portrayal of Storm in the franchise, and while it was kind of nice to see her back in the series for the first time since 2006, I found myself surprised to see her limited to a handful of lines totaling 20 words of dialogue…yes, I counted.

Fans of Rogue (Anna Paquin) only get a small cameo from her in the theatrical version of the film I am covering here. It is worth noting that FOX re-released a director’s cut of Days of Future Past with the subtitle of The Rogue Cut. It features several extra minutes to the film that adds a supporting story for Rogue. I loved Rogue in the hit animated X-Men cartoon of the 90’s and just despised how the original films portrayed her in comparison so I made sure not to pick up that director’s cut release, but for diehard fans of the films wanting the complete experience just know that I am not covering The Rogue Cut here.

It goes without saying that it is quite easy to get lost in the X-Men cinematic cannon when it introduces time travel in Days of Future Past. Seriously, check out the aforementioned clip as a much needed primer before going into this. For example, I was a little caught off guard when 1973 Wolverine still has his natural bone claws until I remembered he does not get infused with Adamantium in the cannon until several years later as detailed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This fact, along with others may or may not be rewritten because of the time traveling entailed in this film so expect a few tidbits in mutant film history to change accordingly. As much as I recommend prepping up going into this, I think I had more fun reliving this since I saw it last in the theater. I did my best to ignore any or all time paradoxes that occurred in the other films and it resulted in a much better experience. So yeah, I take it back, ignore watching that clip before the film and instead watch it after and be amazed at what all pieced together with the other films.

First Class had a tremendous cast and a lot of powerful moments that hit in a way unlike any of the previous films. I will tip my hat to director Matthew Vaughn with First Class being my favorite of all nine mutant films so far. Unfortunately he was unavailable for the sequel, but FOX was able to bring back Bryan Singer to the director’s chair after being away from the series since directing the very first two films. Vaughn somehow is capable of capturing the perfect mix of action, comedy and powerful dramatic moments in his film. Singer is just a notch or two below, but he is still pretty damn good in his own right. The action scenes are tremendous, with the clear cut standouts being Magneto levitating some heavy duty buildings in a CG spectacle and a slow motion kitchen scene showing off the powers of Quicksilver (Evan Peters). Where he lacks in comparison to Singer is that the big climatic moments hit, but just not as strong as they do in First Class. I still very much enjoyed this film and it was a very quick two hour and ten minute watch because so much is happening with all the time traveling and the jam-packed cast involved.

FOX has included several extra features totaling just over an hour on the BluRay of the theatrical release. There are about 10 minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes that are fun quick watches on what did not make it into the film, including a surprising moment with Wolverine and Storm. The following four extras are all right around 10 minutes each, and worth checking out. Double Take and X-Men Reunited compares the past and present versions of the mutants and what their respective actors bring to the table. Lots of fun anecdotes here of the original cast getting nostalgic as they were part of the filming process again and being flattered/shocked when some new cast members told them how old they were when they saw the first films. Classification M profiles all the new mutants introduced and gives a very entertaining look at how they pulled off Quicksilver’s big scene in the film. Finally, Sentinels: Secure Future explains how they built the designs of the past and present versions of one of the X-Men’s most popular villains.

Yes, I would have preferred for Vaughn to come back and give us his version of Days of Future Past, but Singer did an admirable job filling in, especially considering the ambitious plot. I am still wrapping my head around how this relates to the rest of the films as I am pretty sure I missed connecting a few dots from beginning to end. If you do not mind spotting some inconsistencies with the other films and just enjoy Days of Future Past for what it is, then you will be in for a fun summer popcorn comic book flick and afterwards be ready for the final installment of this trilogy that is Apocalypse.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

Sting: Into the Light

To honor the man they call Sting’s WWE Hall of Fame induction a couple months ago, today I am covering last year’s release put out by WWE Home Video, Sting: Into the Light (trailer). Sting has only been under contract with WWE for a year and a half, and Into the Light marks his second WWE Home Video release. In early 2015 WWE rushed out The Best of Sting, which is mostly a collection of matches and recycled interview clips from Sting early in his WCW career. Into the Light on BluRay has 20 new matches in this collection on top of a career-spanning feature length documentary.

As I mentioned in many past entries on this blog I am a fan of WWE’s documentaries as they are usually pretty thorough and do their best to highlight most key moments of a career. Sting’s clocks in at 75 minutes on the disc, and while it does hit most of his big moments and marches along at a brisk pace, it could have easily went to two hours and cover more of his big feuds throughout his career. It is worth noting the Into the Light documentary is available on the WWE Network for all subscribers, but for whatever reason the version available on the network is 20 minutes shorter than the version on the BluRay.

The documentary has an overall theme every couple of chapters when it jumps to modern-day Sting in a car on his first trip to WWE Headquarters in Connecticut and touring the building and meeting with Triple H and other top WWE officials. Aside from these mini-chapter breaks, the last half hour of the documentary focuses on his first several months in the WWE where he made his debut at Survivor Series 2014 all the way through to his big match against Triple H at Wrestlemania 31. This is obviously a big transition and the biggest moment of his career, but to dedicate nearly half the documentary to just his latest few months in the business and the other half to his previous 20 years in the business is simply absurd.

If you were curious to how WWE was going to address Sting competing in TNA Wrestling for nine years from 2005-2014, they did what I expected and have Sting give it a brief mention by saying he spent some time competing over there before moving right along. I do not blame them for not going in depth about his career there since TNA is still a competing promotion and WWE does not own any of the rights to their footage (yet). That is too bad because I would have loved to see Sting comment about some prime TNA memories like Kurt Angle beating up his son and the Stinger running amok as “Joker” Sting.

The documentary quickly moves through Sting’s childhood years before moving along to how he got into bodybuilding which was how he met up with Jim Hellwig/Warrior and how they formed a tag team to break into the wrestling business in the mid-80s. Seeing some of this vintage old-school footage of Sting & Warrior teaming in Memphis Wrestling and Mid-South/UWF in the mid-80s was a trip to take in just because of how green both Sting & Warrior were at the time. Make sure to check out the extras as there are a couple early matches of Warrior & Sting teaming up where they do nearly nothing for practically the entire match, and even the announcers call them out for how new they are to the business. While the matches are admittedly ugly, they are fun in a nostalgic way just to see how far they have come since. The documentary did a great job in this early-years portion of Sting’s career by including interviews relative to this timeframe with Warrior shortly before he passed away, Jerry Lawler, and Warrior’s replacement partner in Mid-South, Rick Steiner!

Sting was most famous for his NWA/WCW run from 1988-2001, and the documentary covers it as best as it could in about a half hour. A decent amount of time was spent how Sting modified his look into the bleach blond/spiked up hair “surfer” Sting look and how he quickly moved up the ranks of WCW before emerging as a headliner in a big match against Ric Flair at the first Clash of the Champions. I will give props to the filmmakers for including interviews here with Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Rick Steiner, DDP, Ron Simmons, Goldberg, Vader, Jim Ross and Big Show to give a good consensus on how Sting had “it” and how he was a natural fan-favorite throughout his WCW career.

There is a fun jump to current-day Sting going through boxes of his old merchandise in his barn to relive some old WCW stories you do not want to miss. He uses them as a nice transition to reinventing his character and becoming the black and white ”Crow” Sting during the Monday Night Wars era of WCW. The WCW portion of his career in the documentary wraps up by going in depth about the year-long build to fight Hulk Hogan at Starrcade ’97 and how backstage politics ruined the finish of the match. Sting kind of goes on to say how backstage in WCW in ’98 was a bad time in his life and lead to him becoming a born again Christian. That comes full circle at the end of the documentary where it concludes on how Sting remarried and interviews family and friends that are part of the church he attends to end the feature on a happy note.

I am relieved the documentary ends there so I did not have to re-watch Sting’s career-ending neck injury against Seth Rollins at the Night of Champions 2015 event that ended his wrestling days. I enjoyed how the documentary showed a few shots of Sting’s home life on his ranch and I got a better idea of how Sting is in a good place in his personal life now. It gave a legit look at the real Sting outside of wrestling and just hearing him reminisce while digging up old merchandise and while building a bonfire gave a authenticity to his candid thoughts on the business. Make sure to check out nearly 30 minutes of bonus feature stories/deleted scenes that did not make the final cut of the feature. There are a few fun tales to check out here like fun pranks with Lex Luger and Rick Steiner, Sting admitting how he did not have the best promo skills, protein shake tips with the Stinger and Sting playing the latest WWE videogame, WWE 2K15 with the game press award winning member, Greg Miller.

As far as the 20 extra matches on Into the Light goes, I feel they have a really good variety covering all the key eras of Sting. As I mentioned above there are three matches you must watch from his early tag team days in Memphis & Mid-South just to see how raw Sting was back then. Nearly all his WCW matches feature hot crowds that you can tell are definitely behind Sting no matter how good or bad the actual matches are. Sting’s 45-minute time limit draw with Flair on the first Clash of Champions features a fair amount of rest holds, but the two pros had the crowd in the palm of their hands every time Sting teased a comeback and especially in the final several minutes when the action heated up.

Other noteworthy surfer-Sting era matches included are when he teams with Luger against the Steiners in a tag bout where everyone was on Sting said in the documentary this was a match he was very proud of. There is the modern day equivalent of an I Quit match in 1991 against Cactus Jack that turned into a great hybrid of wrestling and brawling all over the arena. There is an intense “against all odds” match against Vader from Slamboree ’94 where the two slug it out and Sting has to overcome the brute that is Vader and interference from his manager, Harley Race. There is also a really good back-and-fourth match on here against then “Stunning” Steve Austin in his final months with the company in 1995.

There are a lot of good match ups from the Nitro years on here which fall into a pattern of a lot of good wrestling, but a lousy DQ finish to the match to make you pay for the ultimate payoff at the monthly PPV. Matches on here that follow that formula are a rare hero vs. hero encounter against Hulk Hogan in ’95, a surprisingly good bout against Goldberg in ’98 and a really good battle against Bret Hart in ’99. Only exception to that rule is when Sting won the WCW World Title from Diamond Dallas Page on an April ’99 episode of Nitro in an excellent PPV quality match with a clean finish. This was my first time reliving that match since I attended it live at the Fargodome 17 years ago, and it brought back an incredible rush witnessing a rare World Title change they usually save for PPVs.

The matches part of this collection close off with his WWE debut where he came out in the closing moments of the Survivor Series 2014 main event and facing Triple H at Wrestlemania 31. If you own the BluRay though you get a little over an hour of exclusive extras featuring four matches and two Sting promos from WWE last year. A couple of those matches on here follow the above-mentioned Nitro formula of a crummy ending with otherwise-really good wrestling against Brian Pillman, a pre-Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner, and teaming with Dusty Rhodes against the Four Horsemen. The only BluRay exclusive match with a shenanigans-free finish is against Booker at Spring Stampede 2000 (this was when Booker T was in a storyline where he was robbed of the “T” part of his name, thank you Russo!).

This is the Sting collection you want from WWE. While The Best of Sting has the edge in quantity and quality of matches featured, there is still a solid round-up of Sting’s best matches on Into the Light. More importantly for newer fans you definitely want to see the documentary for why Sting has meant so much to the business, and for long-term fans it is a nice quick Cliff’s Notes refresher on his career.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unrealeased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
Wrestlemania 31
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015