Category: Opinion

John Ostrander: Geek is the New Cool

by John Ostrander

gal-gadotGeek Culture Rules!

We all know that Geek Culture has taken over our American civilization. Young’uns may not realize there was a time when the Geek was looked down on and sneered at and frequently beaten up for their lunch money… which is embarrassing when you’re 24. Now, superheroes have taken over the movie box office and can be found in one version or another all over television.

Further proof: the current issue of Entertainment Weekly not only has Benedict Cumberbatch on the cover as Doctor Strange, the majority of the double-sized issue is taken up with a listing of the Fifty Most Powerful Superheroes. How much more geeky can you get? The very quintessence of geekdom is arguing about which superhero icon is better. read article

Dennis O’Neil, Bob Dylan, and Temporary Disreputability

bob-dylan

by Dennis O’Neil

I don’t know how or from whom I learned of Bob Dylan. My patches of memory reveal that I was living aboard an aircraft carrier. I must have gone into a city (Boston?) and bought a copy of The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, then taken it to a tiny office below the flight deck, put it on a kiddie-sized turntable somebody had brought aboard, and listened and liked.

Another memory patch: a shipmate, a kid I barely know, typed the lyrics to Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice” and put them on my desk, where I found them later. I have no idea why he did this – he owed me nothing – and I wish I’d been more grateful at the time. read article

Munchman’s Latest TV Musings

Munchman’s TV Musings #3

  1. OMG, kids, Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman actually saw a TV show I lurve. A series that reflects the reality of my munched-up life and, methinks, the lives of other members of my reviled Millennial generation. I’m talking about the absolutely best series ever to appear on The CW (yeah, that isn’t saying much but still…), My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I won’t say much about it other than it’s a genuinely witty musical comedy (?!) and every damn thing I saw while bingeing Season 1 was true to all the feelings that I and my various recent Significant Others – AKA crazy ex-girlfriends) have felt. Watch this one!
  2. Continuing on an unaccustomed positive note, el Munchero also has spent some time watching the first couple of episodes of YouTube’s new series, Chance, starring Dr. Gregory House – excuse moi, I mean Hugh Laurie – as a doctor who gets way too involved in the problems of one of his non-patients. (Watch the opening ep and you’ll know what I mean.) It’s slow but filled with pseudo-noir goodness. That steamy old Kathleen Turner film Body Heat with a psychiatric twist. It’s a story we’ve all seen before, but it’s done impeccably. Gotta love a world where every single damn character is insane and most of them don’t know it.
  3. Moving on to the more normal Muncharoni disdain, CBS has canceled the worst show created by major showrunners in years, BrainDead. God, what a disappointing piece of Big Eye Network foolery. With any luck this will be the last we see of the highly overrated team of Robert and Michelle King. Don’t start commenting on how I put the man’s name first, ‘kay? That’s how the outdated, untalented brains behind one of the worst successes in TV AKA The Good Wife bill themselves. Buy-bye, Michelle and Bobby, please let the swinging door whack ya in your asses on the way out.
  4. Have I communicated my feelings of dismay over Charlie Kaufman’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind being turned into a TV series? Well, I’m munching the news into teeny weeny pieces right now. The creative team in charge consists of all kinds of people who are in tight with production company Universal Cable Productions, and Charlie himself isn’t one of them. Yeppers, Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant wacko scriptor behind not only ESOTSM but also Adaptation (executive produced by our Beloved Leader LB’s brilliant son Jeb Brody), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Adaptations, among others, has absolutely no say about this series. For that matter, he has never had a say about any series because TV execs are terrified of the dood. As they should be cuz Charlie knows things, ya hear what Munchie’s muttering?
  5. Munchabello here was going to write another angry paragraph about how totally patronizing and contemptible the recent announcement by Netflix that it’s authorized a new series by Mexican filmmaker Manolo Caro was, but shit’s happening at the Bangkok studio where my amazingly cool and wonderful and in every way perfect (if you have my mentality, that of a brilliant 12 year old kid) web series The Fantastic Friends is being made, so tootles for now, y’all. (And don’t forget to watch FF so you can see where I’m coming from and totally discount anything I say about…well, anything, I suppose.)

That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but amazingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!

John Ostrander: Making a Better Superman

by John Ostrander

supergirl-season-2As of last Monday night, Warner Bros grew a Superman problem. That’s the night that Supergirl started its second season on its new home, the CW… where one could argue that it always belonged anyway. The show guest starred Supergirl’s cousin, Superman, embodied on TV by Tyler Hoechlin.

If you don’t already know, DC – unlike Marvel – does not link its movie universe and its TV universe. Since DC Comics is currently in the Multiple Universe concept once more, it might help to think of their TV and movie universes as alternate dimensions. So we can have two Flashes, two Wonder Women – and two versions of Superman.

The DC movie version of Superman, as shown in Man of Steel andSuperman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice Whaddee Do Dah, is played by Henry Cavill and is a darker, more brooding, somewhat more Batman-ish Superman. His costume is also darker, almost a blue-black. He is, we are told, a more “realistic” Superman. And that’s where I think the trouble is going to lie. read article

John Ostrander: A Writer Picks His Favorite Characters

amanda-waller-grimjack-kros

by John Ostrander

Last weekend I was at the Geek’d Con in Rockford, Illinois. It was a small first time con and it had some things to work out, but over all it went okay.

I really enjoyed the fans but, for me, the big moment was when my niece, Julie Adams, showed up with her husband Rob and their three kids, Rachel, Hailey, and Ryan. They even sat in on the Q&A panel I did on Saturday and, bless ‘em, asked some questions themselves. And, as is typical with kids and especially kids who are relatives, a question or two were tough to answer. read article