Lost In Space – The Best And Brightest
Note: This Article Contains Spoilers From Netflix’s Lost In Space Season One
Space is a beautiful beast. Yet space is a beast humanity still has yet to conquer. What could it possibly take for humans to explore space safely?
Peak physical and mental health are at the top of that list. When creating the reboot to Lost In Space the writers (Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless) definitely kept the harshness of space survival in the back of their mind.
Trailer For Season One Here:
Real astronauts not only have thorough backgrounds in sciences and chemistry, but they also must undergo intense physical training to prepare them for changing conditions in space. Let’s not forget the countless hours spent running through emergency procedures and problem-solving. It was fascinating to see a scenario where those skills were exactly what helped them survive -skills that were trained and tested before their family embarked on a dangerous journey to a new frontier.
Will Robinson’s growth throughout the first season articulates how important those skills really are. Not only does his sister Judy almost literally get frozen thanks to him freezing at a time he needed to be collected, but his inability to handle stress was known to be lacking before even leaving Earth. Given the circumstances, his mother, Maureen, pulls some strings to get him accepted to the program, so they could venture into space as a family. Though Will’s age presents a very strange problem for future space travel, does his age affect his ability to adapt to the ever-changing conditions? In this case, he seems to be able to adapt just fine. His knowledge helps them identify a read more…
Streaming In The New Year
I remember how in my bartending days, my team of customer service brethren and I referred to New Year’s Eve as amateur night. We called it this because every other day of the year we served regular drinkers. New Year’s Eve meant that people who only drank on occasion made this their night out. This caused concern for those of us with the responsibility of serving people who lacked the tolerance for drinking. We planned ahead by having cab companies on standby and prepared ourselves to go home covered in vomit.
Nowadays I prefer to imbibe indoors. I entertain myself by streaming my favorite shows. My preferred streaming service is Netflix, although Amazon Prime TV and Hulu are doing some epic things. We compiled a list of Top Notch shows coming to Netflix in January. This is what I am watching to relieve some of the Winter Blues. Yes, we are lucky to have snow. It’s still my human desire to be warm. When I’m not indoors under a blanket, I am wearing my Puffer Jacket and doing everything I can to stay warm. I am a working journalist. I keep telling myself, moving close to the Canadian border in this political climate was probably a good decision. I’m still cold, and I’m coping by streaming stellar shows on Netflix. Here’s what I’m watching.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: Season 3 (begin streaming on January 1)
Not only is this show stunning, it also stars Neil Patrick Harris. Life has ups and downs. Children don’t understand that. They don’t understand the concept of life difficulties. We aren’t doing them any favors by putting them inside a bubble until they are 18 and then releasing them into the dark world with no understanding of how to cope. Shows like A Series of Unfortunate Events do just that. They show kids read more…
Six Films To Look Forward To In 2019
It’s that time again, where we look to the new year with excitement. Hundreds of movies pass through the world’s cinemas each year, and we have so many to choose from. While there are always sleeper hits and things that we haven’t heard about yet that might make for a late release, these six films, in no particular order, are ones that I’m currently most excited about seeing in 2019.
Captain Marvel
When I watched the first trailer, the tagline, “What makes her a hero,” with her becoming a hero, gave me chills that I still feel rewatching it at the time of writing this. Brie Larson is an amazing actress. She carries with her a confidence that completely sells me on her casting. In addition, seeing the Kree and Skrulls introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe outside of the brief mention they get in Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, gives me hope for what a post-Avengers MCU might hold for us. Captain Marvel releases on March 8th.
Glass
Since M. Night Shyamalan’s take on the superhero movie, Unbreakable, released nearly two decades ago, the public had been clamoring for another. When one of the director’s infamous twists in the 2016 Split turned out to be that it was another movie in that universe, Night fans rejoiced. The third film in the series promises to feature Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass with James McAvoy’s The Horde against Bruce Willis as the unbreakable and super strong David Dunn, as well as perhaps cementing that the often maligned writer and director has indeed returned to the greatness of his much earlier works. Glass releases on January 18th.
Avengers: Endgame
All things end, and after a decade and 21 films (counting Captain Marvel by the time this releases), I’m excited to see how Marvel Studios will put this long overarching story to bed. How will characters like Spider-Man and Black Panther, who we know have sequels coming up, return to life or wherever they went when Thanos snapped his fingers? How does Captain Marvel feature into all of this? Who will die and who will survive, and those of the latter, how will they feature, if at all, in the Marvel movies to come? With so many questions to be answered, I hope Endgame sticks the landing. Avengers: Endgame releases on April 26th.
It: Chapter Two
The first chapter of this Stephen King adaptation only told half of the story – from the childhoods of the Loser’s Club. No one knew this, however, when the movie released last year, and it became the highest grossing horror movie in history to read more…
FANS PRICING SATURDAY FOR JANUARY 5, 2019
(Note: We request the price changes from Amazon on Friday evenings. Unfortunately, they don’t change all of the prices at one time.)
Welcome to the New Year! We all wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year filled with wonder and excitement!
Nobody Remembers But Us
Artifact of the Guardians
All’s Fair in Blood and War
Frozen Fire
She is His Witness
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Copyright Sony Pictures
The multiverse is not a new idea for the Marvel universe. Hundreds of Earths exist in the continuity – many of them often made for one issue of a comic and that’s all. One of the most important ones until it more or less ended in 2015 was Earth-1610, otherwise known as the Ultimate Universe. That universe that gave us the Brooklyn born, biracial Miles Morales, with a new suite of spider like abilities but the same mission – save New York City from threats in the most quippy way possible. In the new blockbuster film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, we watch Miles gain his abilities and come into his own – not just to save the New York City of Earth-1610, but all of them. However, it’s not done without the help of several other Spider-people.
To put it plainly, Into the Spider-Verse is a love letter to Spider-Man in all of his iterations: the comics, the live-action films, the classic and often meme’d cartoon, even the much maligned ice cream novelty treat. Not just that, it’s a love letter to comics in general and animation. Each spider-person comes with their own art style, each rendered differently, which makes plain that they are not of this universe. If you love this character, you will love this film because it loves the Spider-Man universe and all of the characters and tropes therein.
Into the Spider-Verse gives us a kind and hopeful Mary Jane Watson, a firm and capable Aunt May, several wise-cracking Peter Parkers, and all of the most iconic Spider-Man villains—Green Goblin, Doc Oct, and Kingpin—if not just a little different. It gives us origin stories like nearly all Spider films do, but for each and every spider-person they introduce. From the standard Spider-Man to the washed up despondent remains of the older and failed Peter B. Parker (which I believe from the main Marvel Universe, Earth-616), the Earth-65 Spider-Woman Gwen Stacy (better known as Spider-Gwen), Earth-90214’s Spider-Man Noir, anime styled Penni Parker and her Spider Mech SP//dr from Earth-14512, and the Looney Tunes–styled Spider-Ham from Larval Earth. Note that absolutely none of these characters are newly created; all of them had existed in comics before their joining the film.
Beyond that, all of the film is amazing – from the immersion in the deep world of Spider-Man, to the care taken in depicting each spider-person as a completely different animation style, and the soundtrack that blends modern and 90’s hip hop that perfectly encapsulates the character of Miles Morales, and the world he and we exist in. A soundtrack so amazing, I should mention, that it is currently number one on iTunes for albums as of this writing.
My only complaint about this film is the inclusion of Peter Porker the Spider-Ham, but that is merely read more…
Fans Pricing Saturday for December 22, 2018
(Note: We request the price changes from Amazon on Friday evenings. Unfortunately, they don’t change all of the prices at one time.)
Scorpion’s Fury
Protector
Haunted by the Gods
Advance
Orphan Witch
Chasing magic
Nobody Lives Forever
Through the Fire and Flame
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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – A Midwinter’s Tale Review
Image: Netflix
This review contains spoilers for the first part of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, including the special available for streaming on Netflix.
While the second part of the series isn’t due until April 5th of next year, Netflix has already gifted us with more of our favorite, teenage witch in the eleventh chapter of part one, “A Midwinter’s Tale”, just in time for Christmas. This 55 minute special finds us a few days before Christmas and the Winter Solstice, and we see the half witch, half human Sabrina Spellman wishing for the council of her long, dead, human mother, who she saw in Limbo earlier in the season. She decides to perform a séance during the Solstice when the barrier between this world and that of the dead is at it’s thinnest. Meanwhile, we follow Susie as she gets a job as an elf in the Christmas village – something she’s wanted for a long time, but it isn’t all that it seems.
In what will be undoubtedly classic Chilling Adventures of Sabrina form, this special takes things that we would find familiar from the Christmas Village and Yule log and turns them on their ear to fit into the Chilling version of Earth. Likewise in the same way, we watch as Sabrina goes back to the well of bad choices made with good intentions.
While a fun holiday special, the majority of this episode is spent resolving and updating us about the going ons of the characters in the story before the second part releases. We know where Sabrina stands with Harvey after getting the advice from her mother’s spirit about her experience trying to be a mortal in love with a witch, and how he in turns feels about the witch side of her. On the other hand, we also get that she has, to one extent or another, reconciled her relationships with her friends, both mortal and magical. We also get what Aunt Zelda will do with Leticia, the female twin that she stole from Father Blackwood, and a minor insight into to the warlock group read more…
Top Selling Science Fiction Audiobooks at Audible Right Now
In the middle of moving, I realized that I have no problem finding a locality to purchase a bed and a couch. I’m not worried about finding the heavy stuff and not moving things like furniture. You know what essential item I am bringing with me: my books. I simply can’t live without my books. They go where I go.
My books are like memories. While closing one volume, I contemplate the period I was in at the time. I remember reading all of Dickens and then moving onto Hawthorne and not understanding what it meant to have a scarlet letter emblazoned on you. Fast-forward into the modern world and the streaming services that offer books, a classic becomes an instant hit.
We all know how some of the world’s most renowned authors didn’t make it big until long after their deaths. What they had to say did resonate at the time, but it wasn’t until long after they were gone that we as humans understand what they were trying to say about the current culture and conventions.
Take my favorite book Contact by Carl Sagan, and how a story really told the insider mind of science through narrative. That’s what science fiction gives us. It not only puts into reality modern science and understanding, it gives us characters that utilize these scientific tools
We’ve compiled a list of the bestselling science fiction books available on Audible.com right now. These books tell of real human people struggling and how technology is impacting their current life and how it is projecting the future.
- Artemis, by Andy Weir, Narrated by Rosario Dawson
- For We Are Many, by Dennis E. Taylor, Narrated by Ray Porter
- Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, Narrated by Wil Wheaton
- The Extinction Cycle Boxed Set, by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Narrated by Bronson Pinchot
- The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi, Narrated by Martin Freeman
- Leviathan Wakes, by James S. A. Corey, Narrated by Jefferson Mays
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams, Narrated by Martin Freeman
Fans Pricing Saturday for December 15, 2018
(Note: We request the price changes from Amazon on Friday evenings. Unfortunately, they don’t change all of the prices at one time.)
Everyone In LA Is An Asshole Book 2
AND – A special Holiday bonus from J.L. Hendricks.
Miss Claus and the Secret Santa: A Shifter Christmas Romance
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Avengers Endgame, Trailer Review and Speculation
Part of the journey is the end. So says Tony Stark at the start of the two minute and twenty-five-second long first travel for the upcoming fourth and, if Marvel Studios is to be believed, last Avengers film, which also reveals the long-awaited subtitle: Endgame. With this, we begin to set the stage for whatever that film is and how the actors and characters we love so much will make their exit from the MCU.
The trailer begins with Stark on one of the ships from Titan, out of food and water and soon out of air as well. He records a message into the heavily damaged helmet of his Iron Man suit for his fiancee, Pepper Potts. We then shift to Thanos, having left his armor behind, walking on a world with flowers, with Black Widow voice-over, talking about how Thanos did what he promised, killing one-half of all creatures. Quick cuts to some of the surviving characters, Widow, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor, and Nebula. We see Natasha encounter someone in a new, less flashy outfit with a bow, revealed to be the former Hawkeye, Clint Barton, in his Ronin guise. Widow assures Captain that whatever they have planned is going to work, to which he replies: “I know it is, because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it doesn’t. The title card appears, the subtitle forming from rubble backlit in purple. The final moment is Scott Lang outside the front gates of the Avengers HQ asking to be let in as Captain and Widow look on with stunned amazement.
The trailer, while not letting on a whole lot about what will happen in the movie, the trailer is filled with emotion, a desperate need to hope. Captain barely read more…